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RELIGION 



AND 



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By F. r>. cxjm:m:i]ngs. ^ 



New York : 
THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY 

28 Lafayette PiiACE. 






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RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In presenting this volume to the public it seems 
proper to state that it is the result of the accumu- 
lations of years of thought and honest examination. 
How early in life the writer first commenced to take 
interest in matters pertaining to religion and the 
Bible may not be fixed with exactitude, but such inter- 
est began at a very early date ; and, with an ever- 
increasing power, has remained until to-day. To 
me it seems obvious that all men should give atten- 
tion to these matters. Any man who believes that 
the grave is not the end of existence, in which is 
buried life as well as body — spirit as well as physi- 
cal form — is in duty bound to examine those things 
within his reach which may throw light upon a 
subject the truth regarding which is of incalcu- 
lable importance to mankind. And he who does not 
believe in the continuation of life beyond the grave 
has even greater need to learn. Mind you, I do not 
say to accept, but to learn, for upon this subject there 
seems to be but little individual learning, and a great 
deal of accepting what someone else has said was 



4 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

true, simply because he said it. Thousands of men 
have doubtless read the Bible more than I, but 
simple reading is of very little consequence ; since 
to read and to examine are such different things. 
Many men can repeat " scripture " by the yard, who 
cannot, or do not, examine it by the inch. A parrot 
can repeat what it has heard, but never constructs 
new sentences from new thoughts, and this is the 
manner of most Bible study. The next method is 
a study for a specific purpose (but not the true pur- 
pose), or to fortify some creed. The Baptist has 
his special line of thought to demonstrate as the 
'' truth of the Bible," and the Methodist his, and the 
Universalist his, and so on throughout the list. 
Each has his commentary upon certain scripture, 
different from what is had by his neighbor of another 
creed, and theology has become only another name 
for sophistry, the tenets and teachings of which are 
assiduously instilled into the brains of the student 
in preparation to "preach the gospel." A prime 
object of the various schools of theology is to instill 
into the minds of their victims the assumed fact of 
the inerrancy of their creed and the particular inter- 
pretations and meanderings by which they claim to 
maintain them, coupled with, whatever schooling 
they may deem essential to enable them to properly 
present their especial dogma to the minds of men in 
a way that will enable them to win others to the 
same belief. All this is prejudgment. No man 
would be allowed to sit upon a jury who had already 
a dogmatic theory of his own and whose avowed pur- 
pose was to find something in the evidence with 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

which to bolster up his belief, but this is the way 
they make ministers ; and, for the most part, the 
ministers disseminate ideas which are accepted by 
the members. The only school of theology that 
ought to be attended, is one which at present has 
only the universe for a class-room and truth for a 
teacher, the sole object of whose students should be 
to learn what this teacher can show them, in utter 
disregard of its effect upon former opinions and 
beliefs. Such an investigation of the Bible I have 
made to the best of my ability, and the result is be- 
fore you. When I commenced, I believed the Bible to 
be true from Genesis to Revelation. The story of 
the creation, fall, redemption, miraculous birth, mir- 
acle, Jonah and the whale — all were true. And then 
I commenced to think — and then I read and thought 
a good deal more ; and little by little, one by one, 
the myths of old have vanished and their place is 
filled by the ideas I try to present to you in this 
book. I well remember when I first began to ques- 
tion the statement that Jesus was the son of God and 
not the son of Joseph. Perhaps all who once held 
the belief in the miraculous birth and have discarded 
it, may have been through a similar experience. My 
reason told me it was not true, and with a somewhat 
startled feeling at the thought of doubting so impor- 
tant a fact in Bible authority, I instantly dropped 
the thought that had flashed like a ray of light upon 
my mind, as a man would drop a hot iron. But I 
was not so made that it could be long cast aside, and 
back it came with renewed force, or to find a more 
willing entertainer. Doubts and fears, presumably. 



6 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

were the names of tlie mental attitudes whicli for a 
time ruled my mind, and then plain common sense 
would have its unhindered way, and reason took the 
place of superstition as truth came to reign where 
falsehood formerly held sway. Let this one briefly 
mentioned instance suffice for an example of the 
whole. Slowly, year by year, grew the new concep- 
tion. One by one came the new truths in place of 
the old fables. One by one fell the idols of darkness, 
as broader and more perfect became the light. My 
writing comes from an earnest desire of my own, 
which has grown and strengthened with my concep- 
tions. I can only think that it is the same desire 
which calls men to preach what they believe to be 
the gospel of truth. I am ready and willing to allow 
that such are teaching that which they believe to be 
the truth, and that they deem it important that men 
should likewise believe. I give them credit for all 
the conscientiousness to which they may lay claim, 
and ask of them to repay me in kind. The things 
which I believe to be true are of as much importance 
to me as their dogmas are to them, although I may 
hold them with less tenacity against the possible 
presenting of evidence and reason. I hold no ideas 
which I fear to have questioned, no belief which I 
fear to have scanned. Nothing but truth, to me, is 
sacred, and a truth that cannot stand thorough ex-' 
amination and the most searching inquiry without 
the loss of a single ray, is a light that is yet dim, 
although it may be brighter than the one whose 
place it came to fill. My wish in this matter is to 
know the truth, which is of like importance to each 



IKTROPUCTION. 7 

of US, and in the search for which we should have 
one common and unprejudiced desire. If I am 
wrong, show me my error. If you are wrong, accept 
of truth where you find it. Any man who holds a 
belief that he fears to have tested by all the investi- 
gation that the modern searchlights can turn upon 
it, who fears to compare his religion or his concep- 
tions with the religions and conceptions of others 
and of all, is a coward, and has no confidence in that 
which he professes to possess and to believe. Pre- 
eminent in this respect are the Roman Catholics, and 
with ^11 the bravery which may be possessed by a Cath- 
olic in other things, in matters of religion he is an 
arrant coward from pope to layman. They dare not 
come out openly and discuss the truth or falsity of 
their faith and practice — dare not show their hand 
and meet the criticism of the day ; and so, under the 
pretense of infallibility, they stand with a front of 
conceit, which is accepted by their fellows through 
their credulity as authority, in defiance of what they 
dare not fairly meet — the true position of a moral 
coward. This same principle runs in varying 
strength not only through all religions based in a 
near or remote connection upon the Bible, but 
through all religions making the pretense of having 
in their possession the perfect and all-compassing 
truth of God. There is a falsehood at the bottom of 
it, and even though the men cling to it, it seems to 
carry with it a weakness inherent in itself, but which 
by its followers is denned as power. Claiming no 
perfections, welcoming examination, believing that 
truth is immortal and that error is weakness which 



8 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

must surely die, I present these pages to the reader 
with the earnest hope that he may accept all which 
is good and true, and reject every line which is the 
reverse. Many things which this book contains will 
seem harsh and unkind to those who read and be- 
lieve what is here subjected to criticism. This feel- 
ing I regret and wish I could prevent. Perhaps I 
express myself as I ought not to, but I trust all will 
try to look upon my words as applying not to indi- 
viduals, but to ideas ; not to men, but to systems ; 
not to persons, but to things. Among my own 
friends and kindred, the ideas against which I speak, 
the beliefs against which I war, are strongly held. 
The only sadness connected with this work is the 
thought of tbe probable effect upon some of them 
when they read these pages. 

I know of no reason why anyone should impugn 
my motive, and therefore I assume that the cor- 
rect one will be accepted ; but those who believe 
the Bible to be true and without error, and who are 
honest and kind and do not realize the unkindness 
in the things they believe of God, will say, " Oh ! how 
could he do it ? I would never have thought he 
could write such a book." To them I can only 
say I believe it to be true. No unkindness is in- 
tended to any of you, and though you hold the ideas 
which I detest, and that I have long detested, I have 
the same feelings of friendship that I have ever had, 
though in matters of belief I think you are greatly in 
error. To those who stand on their dignity, as they 
think it is, and with a feeling of anger condemn me for 
what I have done, who call me an ** infidel," an "un- 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

believer," a knave, or a fool, I will tell you in 
advance that I do not care the snap of my finger for 
your thunder. Such men as you may be near the 
church, but you are far from the kingdom. This is 
in no sense a personal attack, and those who make it 
so are making their own selection. 

The things written must in no wise be construed to 
mean that church people are in my sight a mass of 
hypocrites or evil-doers with intent. I am not un- 
mindful of the fact that there are many men and 
women — good, earnest souls — who are working dili- 
gently and conscientiously, teaching what they be- 
lieve to be the true way, and showing men, as they 
think, " the one thing needful," without which life 
is a failure and death is a tomb. I am not unmind- 
ful of the fact that they lead many into the way of 
a better life than the one in which they found them, 
and so help in the upbuilding of mankind. What- 
ever association or organization they may create 
that brings a single man nearer to the living of a 
true life and does not in anywise hinder others from 
advancing, is commendable, and my wish is for its 
prosperity. My objections are raised only against 
what I believe to be false and harmful. I am not 
condemning the intent of men, whether Christian, 
Mohammedan, Jew, or Heathen ; whatever good they 
have done I am glad has been accomplished, but I 
am condemning that which I believe to be false ainl 
therefore harmful. Not believing that "where ig- 
norance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise," but that 
where ignorance exists *tis better to be wise, I ob- 
ject to the assumed infallibility of the past, and 



10 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

believe that in the present mixture of good and evil 
which it is taught is the perfect and inerrant ** Word 
of God," lurks many an evil principle, many a false 
teaching, the acceptance and defense of which have 
brought great misery to man and still hold him 
chained to darkness by links which were forged by 
the hands of those who, whatever their intent, had 
neither perfect truth nor perfect wisdom. I regard 
church people a good deal as I regard non-church 
people — some good, some bad, and some indifferent. 
There are members of orthodox churches who lead 
as good lives as any led by men, for aught that I 
can say to the contrary, and men that are not mem- 
bers of any church who do likewise. The only 
measure that I would apply to men is what they 
are, and not what they profess to be, and if any man 
stands up under that mark and reaches the stature 
of a man, I care not what church he attends, or if he 
attends any. Believing that the true temple is 
within, that man cannot serve God except by serving 
man, and that it is a worthy object and desire of 
man to know the truth, which he should ever 
diligently seek and be ever ready to receive, I trust 
the reader will go with me in the same spirit. It is 
not with a feeling of one who thinks he possesses 
all truth, and the ability to perfectly express it, that 
I take up the pen. While the impulse to write is, 
like my conviction of the truth of my conceptions, 
strong, I do not expect to be able to convince the 
world of the truths which I afl&rm. Those things 
come about by no sudden revolution of opinion 
among minds in general, but are, like all grow^th, of 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

gradual development. Some there are to-day who 
will agree with me, and there will be many more by 
and by. This book, therefore, the author does not 
expect to unlock every door and reveal all truth, 
but he hopes it may be a light on the way — that it 
may help. I once read the following account of 
'* The Small and the Great :" " One night a man took 
a little taper out of a drawer and lighted it, and be- 
gan to ascend a long, winding stair. * Where are you 
going?' said the taper. * Away high up,' said the 
man, * higher than the top of the house where we 
sleep.' 'And what are you going to do there?' said 
the taper. 'I am going to show the ships out at sea 
where the harbor is,' said the man. 'For we stand 
here at the entrance to the harbor, and some ship 
far out on the stormy sea may be looking for our 
light even now.' 'Alas ! no ship could ever see my 
light,' said the taper, 'it is so small.' 'If your light 
is small,' said the man, ' keep it burning bright and 
leave the rest to me.' Well, when the man got up 
to the top of the lighthouse— for it was a light- 
house they were in — he took the little taper and, 
with it, he lighted the great lamps that stood ready 
there with their polished reflectors behind them. 
And soon they were burning steady and clear, throw- 
ing a great, strong beam of light across the sea. 
By this time the lighthouse keeper had blown out 
the taper and laid it aside. But it had done its 
work. Though its own light had been so small, it 
had been the means of kindling the great lights in 
the top of the lighthouse, and these were now shin- 
ing brightly over the sea, so that the ships far out 



12 RELiaiON AND THE BIBLE. 

knew by it where tbey were, and were guided safely 
into the harbor." 

Perhaps my efforts may likewise be of use, and 
while in this work I desire to present to you pict- 
ures new and pictures old, some of which are only 
new or different views of old characters, ever mind- 
ful that this transfer of thought is done by the 
picture upon the mind presented by the words wiiich 
the eye beholds, I shall ask you to examine them 
carefully and honestly and see if they are not more 
true to life than many that hang in your homes and 
that have been worshiped as idols for ages. Know- 
ing that the end of man's attainments is a long way 
off, it would indeed be presuming in me to expect 
great results from my efforts, yet I have a hope that 
while I cannot expect to usher man into the inner 
sanctuary of truth, this may be to him, as it 
were, the outer door to the inner temple, the key of 
which God gave him when he gave him reason and 
understanding, and which he has long neglected to 
use. And if this could be said of it, I should in- 
deed be well content. Believing that the earnest 
desire of every honest heart is, in matters of faith 
and religion, as well as upon other themes, to know 
the truth regardless of former convictions, to each 
and every one who so desires, this work is dedicated 
by the author. 



CHAPTER I. 

The God and Man of the Bible. 

What, then, is the God of the Bible ? In answer 
to this question, I ask you to come with me and we 
will open the book, and, reading therefrom, making 
use of such reason and understanding as we fortu- 
nately possess, let us see what we can learn in regard 
to this matter. We open at the first chapter of 
Genesis and read the account of the creation con- 
tained therein until we come to the thirty-first verse 
of that chapter, in which we read, ^ And God saw 
everything that he had made, and behold it was very 
good." This statement seems to fulfill our expecta- 
tions, for it shows God as all-powerful, as supreme, 
and therefore, of course, his work would be *Wery 
good." 

We know that an imperfect God could not make 
a perfect universe, as the potter must be superior to 
the clay, and the creator to the creature ; but we do 
have reason to think that a perfect God (and he is 
not a God who is not a perfect God, but a fractional 
part of something having imperfect power) could and 
would make a thing (anything) as he wanted it. If 
it was a machine, it would run, and all its parts work 



14 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

in harmony, and do the work for which it was made. 
If it was a man, he would fulfill every purpose for 
which he was designed, and reach the goal intended 
by his author. This much must be true ; else you 
impeach the power and the wisdom of the fountain 
Whence he came. Let us now turn to the seventh 
chapter of the same book, and we read, ^* And God 
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the 
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of 
his heart was only evil continually, and it repented 
the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it 
grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will 
destroy man whom I have created, from the face of 
the earth, both man and beast and creeping thing, 
and the fowls of the air ; for it repenteth me that I 
have made them.'* We are now compelled to note 
the statement that God, who had a short time since 
looked and saw everything he had made and pro- 
nounced it very good, is now condemning that same 
creation to swift and certain death, repenting that 
he had made them, apparently because they had 
done as he did not want and as he did not expect 
them to do when he made them ; which would clearly 
show, if true, that he did not know his business and 
was not the possessor either of supreme power or of 
supreme knowledge. In Exodus xxxii, 14, we read, 
** And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought 
to do unto his people ;'' this being done at the 
solicitation of Moses, who in verse 12 of the same 
chapter besought him saying, " Turn from thy fierce 
wrath and repent of this evil against thy people," 
thereby accusing God of being about to do evil 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 15 

to tlie Israelites. We will now note the sec- 
ond case where God is said to have changed his 
mind and repented. Are there any so narrow- 
minded in their views of God that they think he 
would resolve to do a thing that was evil, or that he 
should feel called upon to repent of something that 
he had thought to do ? Yet this book plainly states 
it, and says that his resolve was made in anger. Is 
God a man that he should work himself into a 
passion, and make rash resolves, or is he most slan- 
derously reported in the book of Exodus ? But 
come, let us look again, and this time to Numbers 
xxiii, 19, and see how what we find there agrees with 
what we have just read : " God is not a man that he 
should lie ; neither the son of man that he should 
repent ; hath he said, and shall he not do it. or hath 
he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" Now if 
the writers of the books of Genesis and Exodus stated 
things truthfully, does the writer of the book of 
Numbers also give true testimony in the passage 
just quoted ? (The reader must not think me un- 
mindful of the fact that we are taught that these 
things were all written by the same man). But, 
says the preacher of Bible inerrancy, " Don't you 
think that God has a right to change his mind? 
Don't you know that if a people turn from their 
evil, 'I will repent of tbe evil that I thought to do 
unto them,' saith the Lord." You mean then, I say, 
that God is governed by circumstances. No! Idonot 
believe either proposition. First, God cannot change 
his mind, because to do so he would cease to be a be- 
ing of supreme wisdom ; for perfect wisdom does 



16 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

not come to imperfect conclusions; for Le not only 
knows that which is eternally right, but sees the end 
from the beginning ; therefore it is only man, with 
his limited wisdom, with his gross passions an 1 im- 
perfect heart, that should or can change his mind, 
or repent of what he had done or thought to do. 
But let us read more from the book ; let us turn to 
Jeremiah xviii, 8, and we read, ''If that nation 
against whom I have pronounced, turn from their 
evil I will repent of the evil that I thought to do 
unto them. And at what instant I shall speak con- 
cerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build 
and to plant it if it do evil in my sight, that it obey 
not my voice, then will I repent of the good where- 
with I said I would benefit them." Let us now turn 
to 1 Chronicles xxi and see what an exhibition we 
find contained therein of the *' God of the Bible." 
Now David had caused an enumeration of the chil- 
ren of Israel to be made ; just a simple census, as 
we would ennumerate the people in our state or as a 
shepherd would count his flock, nevertheless, accord- 
ing to the book, God was very angry with him for 
so doing, and straightway resolved to mete out a 
severe punishment for the act ; so he finally gave 
David his choice between a famine, three months to 
be destroyed by his enemies, or three days of pesti- 
lence ; and David chose the pestilence. " So the 
Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel ; and there fell of 
Israel seventy thousand men. And God sent an 
angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it ; and as he was 
destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him 
of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is, 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 17 

enough, stay now thy hand." I ask you with all 
candor if the picture that these words bring up be- 
fore you is a picture of the true God ? Think of it, 
ponder it over and over again, and tell me if you 
there see portrayed the attributes of an ideal being, 
who is the embodiment of all that is good and true, 
or do you see before you a picture of hasty wrath, 
of fierce anger, of revenge and cruelty, one indeed of 
the God of the Bible, but not the true God of all? 
Again he has resolved to do evil and again he has 
stayed his hand, though not until it had descended 
and slaughtered seventy thousand innocent victims. 
But, say the blind, " Had not David sinned most 
grievously in the sight of the Lord and was it not a 
divine retribution for his numbering Israel against 
the wish of the Most High?" No, I do not believe 
that David had sinned most grievously against God 
by numbering the people, but if he had, do you 
think, friend, that he would have entered the homes 
of those who had neither part nor lot in that matter 
and taken the lives of seventy thousand of them for 
a punishment for a deed committed by another? 
Do not, I pray you, make yourself a party to such 
slander against the author of your being, by believ- 
ing such calumny, though you should find it wa*itten 
upon every page in the Bible. But let us inquire 
further of the matter and see if there is any evidence 
within the thing itself that will either credit or dis- 
credit the statements of this twenty-first chapter of 
1 Chronicles. Referring to the first verse of this 
chapter w^e read, '* And Satan stood up against Israel, 
and provoked David to number Israel." According 



18 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

to this, then, the devil caused David to do this num- 
bering, therefore of course it was an evil thing to do, 
as only evil can come from the personification of evil. 
We turn now to 2 Samuel, the twent3^-fourth chap- 
ter and first verse, and read what is said of this 
same matter, and lo ! it says, " And again the anger 
of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved 
David against them to say, Go, number Israel and 
Judah." I will not insult the intelligence of the 
reader by asking him if he sees any contradiction in 
these two statements, as no man can fail to see it, 
whether be would or not, but will simply state the 
degree of difference and let the inquiring figure it out 
for themselves a%to how widely that separates them ; 
namely, just the difference there is between God 
and the devil. If there is no difference, however, the 
two statements would still remain (or one of them at 
least) untrue, because the writers of those books claim 
a great difference ; therefore they would speak falsely 
in attributing the same event to what they regarded 
as widely separated beings and powers. Nor is 
this the only difference in the statements regarding 
this event. In this same chapter of first Chronicles 
(xxi, 5) it states the number of those of Israel as a 
thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men 
that drew sword, awd Judah was four hundred and 
ten thousand men that drew the sword, while Samuel 
(xxiv, 9) says there were in Israel eight hundred 
thousand valiant men that drew the sword ; and the 
men of Judali were five hundred thousand men. 
The author of Chronicles also says (as already 
quoted) David shall have three years of famine as 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 19 

one of the punishments that he could choose, but 
the writer of the book of Samuel says it is seven 
years of famine, so well does this book agree that we 
are told is the veritable word of God given by divine 
inspiration and literally true and inerrant. One 
principle I wish to lay down before we have 
gone any further is, that as we have already stated 
that only evil can come from the personification of 
evil, so only good can come from the personification 
of good, therefore when any man or any book says 
that God thought to do evil to a people, put it 
down at once as a falsehood ; and when any man or 
any book says he repented of the evil he had 
thought to do unto them, put it down as a slander 
containing a falsehood in principle. As, being per- 
fect minded, he would not change his mind, and 
being incapable of committing, resolving, or doing 
evil, the foundation of the statement is untrue. But 
one who might become a lawyer will say : '^He was 
not doing evil, it was simply a visitation upon the 
Jews which was a great evil for them, but it was not 
evil for God to so afflict them, as he was only met- 
ing to them a just punishment for their evil deeds." 
To which I reply : First, that I deny that the thing 
was evil, and constituted a punishable offense in the 
sight of God. Second, that if it did, he did not 
punish the offender, David, but his subjects, who 
had nothing to do with it. Third, that if it was a 
just punishment, and God did do as the book states, 
it is still false in statement, as it would not be an 
evil, even to those receiving it, as it came from the 
source from which naught that is evil ever cometh. 



20 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

And finally it proves itself to be utterly false by 
stating that he repented and stayed his hand in 
the midst, as it were, of the slaughter ; for there 
would be nothing to repent of if the deed he had 
resolved to do was a good one, even in his sight, the 
same as failure to perform it if the resolve was good 
would be of itself both evil and ungodlike. Who 
can fail to see that such pictures of God are not 
trixe pictures ? only a reflection of the mind of the 
writer of those things which, as he lived in a barba- 
rous age, were, like himself, barbarous. In other 
words, out of the motives of his own heart and the 
passions of his own mind, he formed a God like unto 
himself, and pronounced it the "Great I Am." And 
this is the God of the Bible — simply the conception 
of the minds of the various writers as to what God 
should be, and what he was. Therefore, in Old Tes- 
tament times, the God of the Jew was not the God 
of the Gentile, for Jehovah was the chosen God of 
the Hebrews, and the Hebrews were the chosen 
people of Jehovah. So teacheth the Bible. And 
now we search further and find (in Deut. v, 9, 10), the 
following words : " For I the Lord am a jealous God, 
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the chil- 
dren unto the third and fourth generation of them 
that hate me, and showing mercy unto thousands of 
those that love me and keep my commandments." 
*'The Lord thy God is among you, a mighty God 
and terrible" (Deut. vii, 21). "Know therefore 
that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, 
which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that 
love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand 



THE aOB AND MAN OP THE BIBLE. 21 

generations ; and repayetli them that hate him to 
their face, to destroy them ; he will not be slack to 
him that hatetli him, but will repay him to his face " 
(Deut. yii, 9, 10). What a splendid exhibition of 
charity and love ! How well it accords with the 
teachings of Jesus, who bade us love our enemies 
and return not hate for hate, and evil for evil, but 
good for evil. So when we come to statements 
brea^thing forth anger and vindictiveness, we re- 
member and turn our eyes to a more perfect ideal 
of the divine ; and thinking of that ideal, in which 
center every good precept, every true thought, every 
uplifting emotion, our whole soul revolts against 
Deuteronomic ideas of God, and we say, "A thing 
cannot be good in him which evil is in me." There- 
fore those ideas of God are false ideas ; then where- 
fore will ye still cling to them like some ugly thing 
and try to cover it up with the cloak of other state- 
ments, of other ideas concerning God which may 
perchance be good and true ? Throw the filthy 
thing away ! No longer defile the temple of your 
mind by entertaining and apologizing for such a 
guest. 

For, as you do not expect water to flow higher 
than its fountain, you should not expect men to ex- 
cel their ideal of excellence. When, therefore, you 
admit the passions into your conception of the god- 
head, you debase it to becoming a partaker of the 
lowest, instead of exalting it to consisting of only 
the very highest ideal of excellence of which our 
minds can conceive. Take care ! Think of the 
effect of believing that in the highest excellence^ 



22 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

which you worship as God, you enshrine hate, anger, 
and revenge. It is not a coincidence merely that 
men who held this view of God have grasped the sword 
to compel where they could not convert. It is not 
merely a coincidence that men who held these views 
have been persecutors and inquisitors. It is a nat- 
ural result. And again we open the book, this time 
at Deuteronomy iv, 24, and read : '^ For the Lord thy 
God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God," and 
like an echo come the words of Isaiah xii, 9 ; " Be- 
hold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with 
wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate ; and 
he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it." Also 
Psalm vii, 11, " God judgeth the righteous, and God 
is angry with the wicked every day." These are 
plain statements. There is no mystery in them, and 
he who reads can understand. They are in the 
Bible ; are they true? Let us pause here a moment 
to consider a point which it will be well to note be- 
fore proceeding farther. There is a physical law 
with which we are all acquainted that causes the 
limb that is not used to very materially lose its 
strength, if it does not gradually wither away. The 
arm that is carried in a sling soon becomes enfeebled. 
Is it not so with the mind ? Do not exercise your 
memory, and see if it does not grow weaker. Do 
not use the voice for a long time, and see if its 
strength and tone are not less perfect and if you are 
not sooner exliausted. Open some profound work. 
Commence Milton's *' Paradise Lost," if you have 
never read it, and see if you can grasp it with the 
same comprehension at the outset that you obtain 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 23 

after better acquaintance. Apply your mind to any- 
thing, I care not what, and tell me (if it is not some- 
thing that is too shallow for mention) if you reach 
the end of your comprehension and insight at the 
beginning, or if you go on step by step from one 
degree to another, getting a more perfect knowledge 
the longer and more thoroughly you investigate the 
subject. Cover the eye — that window of the soul — 
or keep it in darkness, and see the result. Fishes 
have been found in underground streams absolutely 
without eyes out of which they could see; having 
grown useless and unused, a film formed over them 
and shut out the light. This law which works in 
this manner has no exception in application to 
things physical or things mental in the man in a 
normal condition, of which I am aware, and now 
comes the question, has it in the spiritual ? I believe 
it has not. And so I say. Think, study, read, and 
listen. Don't fear to hear the views of others who 
are opposed to you, but rather, don't fail to hear 
them. Search for truth in all things and in all 
places ; it is indeed a barren field that yields no 
flower, and a barren flower that 3'ields not, at least, 
a little hone3^ If j^ou condemn a field unsearched, 
you may miss a jewel. Take reason for your guide 
and enter and examine for yourself. Did you ever 
observe the bee going from blossom to blossom, 
gathering a little here and a little more there, in the 
garden and in the field ? And then he flies yonder and 
sucks the sweet from the wild flower, from the 
basswood and the locust, and returns home laden 
with sweetness plucked from many things. The 



24 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

flowers and trees from which he gathered varied 
greatly in sweetness, in beauty and perfnme. One 
had but little to offer, and another was fairly laden 
with richness. Busily on went the bee, taking the 
little and adding it to that already gathered, return- 
ing again and again, searching out new fields and 
new flowers, and by and by his little hive was stored 
full of sweetness — pure, clear, and excellent, the 
best of many flowers, culled from many fields. 

Nothing useless had he brought to his home, but 
all the day long from week to week he gathered the 
gold and left the dross, and now behold the result. 
Had some old bee (or drone) come to him and said : 
*' Honeysuckle is sweeter than this flower ; find a 
honeysuckle and draw from that alone," he would 
have said, "Thou foolish bee, see you not that I 
take from all alike according as they have sweet- 
ness ? Were I to draw from this or that flower only, 
then would my house contain but little and the 
winter would come and we should all perish." But 
bees are not foolish like men, and never make these 
mistakes. " But," says one, " all flowers do not 
yield honey ; there are those from which the bee 
does not gather." Don't croak, follow the bee, he 
will show you the way. Gather from all that has 
good to offer. Don't sit on the hollyhock in your 
own garden and growl ; follow the bee. Take care, 
then, how you stifle the free exercise of the spirit- 
ual man. Take care how you try to place it in 
limits into wliich the budding souls of ages have 
been crowded, stifled, and — I nearly said — destroyed, 
but I will only say dwarfed. You who want nothing 



THE aOB AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. ^5 

but corn for food would do well to consult a physi- 
cian if you are ill, but if you are not, then look out 
or you will next walk upon four legs instead of two, 
mentally, at least. Examine so-called truths before 
you accept them. 

Don't lose your spiritual discernment ; don't ever 
trust it to another, for just as sure as that there is a 
life beyond the tomb, just so sure is it that he who 
passes over the care of that to another will lose 
the power to care for it himself ; aye, if he were to 
neglect the study and discernment of spiritual things 
long enough, it seems as though the spiritual man 
would die. We may be thankful however, that this 
life is doubtless too short for such an end, and in the 
life beyond I trust that such a thing will not be pos- 
sible. But we have a privilege in this world which 
is both a privilege and a duty ; and that is, to profit 
by our opportunities that it may be ivell with us 
hereafter. This primary school that we call life has 
duties and opportunities that must not be neglected, 
or we shall be found in poor condition to enter the 
liigher class beyond our present sphere. There are 
those that, I am sorry to say, are spiritually blind; 
and I think there are also those that are mentally 
dishonest, but mayhap it is the former trouble and 
I have not charity enough for them. I pity the for- 
mer, the latter I despise. I refer to the man who, 
when you have made a statement that is perfectly 
clear and evidently and logically true, will not admit 
that which ho cannot deny, but will say, " I presume 
it is all right if it was properly understood. We 
probably do not get its meaning. It may look as 



26 HELIGION A^Tf THE BIBLfi. 

you say, but it can't be so, and no amount of reason- 
ing in the world can make me think as you do. I 
am a — (and he mentions his creed), and that re- 
ligion is good enough for me." To another you 
show a square contradiction, plain as English words 
can make it, and he won't own that a contradiction 
exists ; and then he will put a most unwarrantable 
construction upon some clear statement that does 
not jibe with his creed or belief. Is he mentally 
dishonest or spiritually blind ? Now, after this 
rather long digression let us return to our scripture 
lesson, and we will now consider a better, although 
a very different, view of God than we found in the 
opinions already examined. 

Isaiah said : " Behold the day of the Lord cometh, 
cruel both with wrath and fierce anger." We turn 
to Proverbs xxvii, 4, as though even in the Bible 
such words could not go unchallenged, and read : 
*' Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous." We 
have seen that the book says '* God is angry with 
the wicked every day," and that he "repayeth them 
J that hate him to their face, to destroy them ; he will 
,not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay 
him to his face." If these things are true — and they 
are in the Bible, remember — what say you of the 
words, " Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous ?" 
Is that false^ or is that true and the other false ? 
In Nehemiah ix, 17, we read : " Thou art a God ready 
to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and 
of great kindness ;" and in Psalms cxlv, 9, ** The 
Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over 
all his works." Even in Deuteronomy, where we 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 27 

read, " For the Lord tliy God is a consuming fire, 
even a jealous God," we also read (Deut. iv, 31) : 
" For the Lord thy God is a merciful God " (anyone 
who wishes to try to reconcile this with other pas- 
sages quoted is welcome to the task) ; and also in 
the same book (xxxii, 4) : " He is the rock, his work 
is perfect ; for all his ways are judgment ; a God of 
truth and without iniquity, just and right is he." 
Let us close these direct scripture references to God 
with the statement found in 1 John iv, 8 : " God is 
love," and so say I ; and were wrath, hate, cruelty, 
and anger connected with his name upon every page 
of the Bible, I would still say the same. Let us 
now turn our thoughts to things which, if less direct 
in language, are hardly less so in principle in their 
reference to, and description of, the God of the 
Bible. 

In examining the condition of a house we should 
look well to the foundation, and so let us examine 
the book of Genesis, which is the foundation of this 
house to which we are directing our gaze : ''And God 
said. Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness." Who is this ^^5? This word implies a 
partnership in this transaction. ^' Oh," says my 
biblical brother, ''don't you know who that is? 
That is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God, you 
know, is a triune being." No, I do not know any- 
thing of the kind, my friend, but I do know that 
men tell me that man is a triune being, composed of 
body, mind, and soul, and that that is an evidence 
of the truth of the declaration in Genesis, that God 
created man in his own image, after his own likeness, 



28 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

but to me it is an unwitting admission of a reverse 
condition. They have thoughtlessly placed the cart 
before the horse. Man, as I have already stated, 
formed his conception of God from his conception 
of man, and wrongly placed among the attributes of 
God such things as anger, wrath, and hate, which 
were some of the lowest of the attributes of which 
he was himself a possessor. Also seeing that man 
(so called) was a composition of these elements, he 
decided that God was composed of three parts like- 
wise. Whether or not this was the primal thought 
of the ancients is doubtfuL as I find really no basis 
for trinitarian teaching in the Old Testament that is 
even at all plausible, but I think this is the origin 
of the trinitarian idea. But I think it likely that 
the idea of the us of Genesis was of an origin quite 
remote, and is the remains, unwittingly mentioned, 
of a more ancient belief in many gods. ^'And God 
said. Let us make man in our image after our like- 
ness." What does this mean, this expression, in 
"our image," *'our likeness?" We all know the 
meaning of the words, but for convenience we will 
place them before us. Image, says Webster, is from 
" the root im, whence imttari, to imitate ; an imita- 
tion, representation, or similitude of any person or 
thing." Likeness means "similitude, resemblance." 
Let us now turn to my friend and ask him to apply 
these definitions to this creation of man by God. 
In what does this creating man in representation or 
similitude of God lie? In what does it consist? Is 
it physical ? Does it mean to stand upright on two 
legs and have the physical organism of a man? 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 29 

(Again comes that thought, our ideal is the person- 
ification of things iu and of ourselves.) No, I do 
not think a very learned man would make any such 
claim as that, although I do believe that a majority 
of Christians (I use the word in the common accep- 
tation of the term) think that God has the form 
(even if a spirit) of a man, and that they shall one 
day see him as they now see men, although they do 
not claim that the resemblance in form is the true 
similitude. 

Let us give those who pin full faith to the biblical 
story of creation all the opportunities they ask for 
and listen while they explain to us that, by creating 
man in his own image, God meant either spiritually 
like hin^ or perfect like him, or like him inasmuch 
as he was a perfect man, the same as he himself was 
a perfect God. These are all of the twists and turns, 
so far as I know, that are given this bit of scripture. 
If there are any more I shall be pleased to learn of 
them. We have now three, or properly only two, 
propositions to consider, for of the first we need 
only say, he could not have been spiritually like 
him, or he would have remained so, as all v/ill admit 
that God changeth not, but is the same yesterday, 
to-da}^, and forever. To my mind the next propo- 
sition is resting on precisely the same basis, but as 
some think they see a difference we will at least 
state their side and see what comes of it. Man, 
they say, was created perfect, but fell from his high 
estate through the machinations of the devil. I 
submit at the outset that perfection cannot be acted 
upon by imperfection. You might just as well state 



30 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

that God himself might, by some unlucky chance, 
fall from his perfection and so cease to be a God. 
But, say the traditionalists (that is what they are), 
man was made perfect, but was made a free moral 
agent, and therefore could remain perfect by perfect 
obedience, or fall by his own act through disobedi- 
ence. He was told by his creator what he should 
do and what he should not do, and the results of 
disobeying. I do wish everyone who believes this 
would give the matter a few days of careful thought. 
Surely that would not be too much to devote to an 
important subject, but I should prefer that they 
give it one hour a day until the time is up. They 
tell us that a perfect being created another perfect 
being and gave him permission to be imperfect if 
he saw fit, but that he would punish him for it. 
Now, as I have said before, a perfect being cannot 
become an imperfect being, and making him free to do 
so (if he was perfect) would make no difference. He 
could not become imperfect if he would, and he 
would not if he could, because, being perfect in the 
only true and real sense of perfection, his character 
would be unimpeachable, and he would not only 
have no inclination to be imperfect, or do imper- 
fectly, but imperfection and evil would find nothing 
within him on which to act, as there would be no 
chord to respond to such a touch, and he would per- 
cieve and comprehend the fact that he would be a 
great loser by the transaction. We come now to 
the consideration of the last proposition, namely, 
that the similitude between man and God was that 
God ereater] In'm a perfect man, not a perfect God, 



THE 0013 AND MAN Of THll BIBLE. 81 

not a God at all, but a perfect man ; just the same 
as the cow that he made (if he made cme) was a per- 
fect cow. This idea taken in the abstract, without 
any connection with the different phases of the cre- 
ation, fall, and redemption, would seem worthy of 
due consideration. Well, let us see if we can find 
out what kind of a creature this would be. In the 
fifth verse of the seventh chapter of Psalms it says : 
" For thou hast made him a little lower than the 
angels." Paul says in his epistle to the Romans 
(vii, 20) : " For the creature was made subject to 
vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath 
subjected the same in hope." Of course no Bible 
believer will dispute Paul, so we will say that the 
Bible says that man was made subject to vanity (or 
imperfection), and also that it was not done because 
the man was willing it should be so. But perhaps 
you say that a perfect man might be very imperfect, 
and we have so far only offered proof that he was 
imperfect, and was so made, and that for a good 
purpose, by the author of his being. Very well, I 
think you are right, so far as his being imperfect is 
concerned, but that he was not a perfect man ; but 
what object could there have been in that *' hope ?" 
What was that *' hope ?" It certainly was not that he 
would lose any of the goodness or godliness that he 
possessed. Neither could it be that he hoped he would 
remain in his then present condition without change 
for the better, so if God made him so by reason of 
hope, it must have been a hope of improvement. 
Let us turn again to nature, that mother of all, and 
learn a lesson from the book which is always open 



82 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

and in which all may read who will. Do you see 
that little bush coming ap there by the way ? It is 
not an attractive thing ; it is short, scrubby, and 
covered with thorns. The season comes and goes 
and it remains the same, save that it gets a little 
taller and its branches become a trifle longer, but 
the hand that is thrust among its leaves is with- 
drawn quickly, smarting from the prick of the brier ; 
but another summer comes and we pass that way 
again, and we see on the bush tiny buds lifting their 
heads up into the rays or the morning sun ; and 
soon they begin to swell and grow, and by and by 
the green coat that covers them parts asunder and 
gradually there unfold to view great, perfect, beau- 
tiful roses, with form and tints that no earthly bush 
can duplicate, and a fragrance more delicious than 
artifice can produce. And as you gaze upon that 
bush loaded down with those beautiful blossoms, 
wet with the sparkling dews of heaven, you see the 
folly of your complaining, and in your heart you 
say, *' Thanks be to him who gave the roses." But 
one comes to me in a complaining tone and says, 
" Can't nature give us the roses ready made, all at 
once, on a perfect, pretty tree?" And I reply, What 
nature can do I know" not ; what nature does do is 
open for all to see. Study nature, for therein you 
see the works of God ; for God is nature, and nature 
indeed is God, and we can learn of him by his works, 
wliich is his only book. Now I. trust that those who 
believe this account of creation will be generous 
enough to give God credit for knowing whether he 
had any reason for this hope or not. It seems to 



THE OOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 33 

me tliat if he is all-wise and all-powerful and knows 
the end from the beginning, he knew his busi- 
ness when lie made man, knew what man was capa- 
ble of, and what he would do with the liberty he 
gave him. For any man to deny this would seem to 
me evidence of a moral suicide. But why not cut 
this matter short at once (this belief that if though 
imperfect he was still a perfect man) by asking 
what there was then to hope for. Nothing, not 
even improvement, as he could only bo the perfect 
ideal of that species or thing of which he was the 
creation. He could not be any raore than a perfect 
man, unless you were to develop him out of his 
species and make him a God, and that, you know, 
could not be the object if you believe the Bible, as 
it plainly states that b}^ his first so-called transgres- 
sion he had become as a God; in proof of which 
assertion I invite you to read in the third chapter 
of Genesis and twentv-second verse the followinsr 

o 

words : "And the Lord God said. Behold the man 
is become as one of us to kiiov/ good and evil." 
What, then, have we as a result of this first so-called 
disobedience ? Man has attained to one of the at- 
tributes of the living God. Can it be evil for a man 
to become more li'ke God? Shame upon a man that 
asserts such a thing ! Again, what kind of a con- 
dition do you think this perfect man of yours was 
in before he had that knowledge of good and evil? 
Think of it ! He had not the power of choice until 
he had knowledge of the things from which he was 
to choose, any more than you could select and assort 
the colors of tlie rainbow if you were stone-blind. 



94 ilELlGfOl^ AND THE BIBLE. 

If he had no knowledge of good and evil, h.3 did not 
even know that it was evil to disobey. And that you 
call a perfect man. If this man of yours was in a 
perfect state when he didn't know enough to know 
whether he was dressed in fig-leaves or stark naked, 
and did not know what was good and what was evil, 
and by doing as he was told not to do he got that 
knowledge, which, according to your own recognized 
authority, was to become more like that embodi- 
ment of love, power, and wisdom, then, I say, thank 
God for disobedience. According to your own ac- 
count, that was the first great step of progression, 
the birthday of the exaltation of the human race. 

Let us now very briefly summarize these biblical 
statements in regard to God and man. God, whom 
you believe to be all-knowing, all-powerful, and 
everywhere present, created a perfect man who was 
imperfect, which God, being all-wise, knew when he 
made him. He then put him in a garden where he 
knew he would be tempted and told him not to do 
that which he knew he ivould do, and that he should 
die if he did it. This thing, which was forbidden, 
man straightway went and did, and by so doing at- 
tained to one of the attributes of divinity, becom- 
ing to that extent godlike, for which God banished 
him from the garden and condemned him and his 
posterity forever. Not only that, but he was sorry 
that he ever made him, and finally he resolved that 
he would destroy man from the face of the earth. 
Oh, what a picture of God ! How very strange that 
the mind can be so lost to truth, that the spiritual 
man can become so blinded, as to entertain this mass 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 35 

of absurdities and contradictions! Verily, having 
eyes they see not, and having ears they do not un- 
derstand. 

Let uSj now that we have looked upon what we 
will call the Old Testament picture of God and 
man, turn and take a thoughtful, if a more brief, 
view of the picture of the God and man of the New 
Testament. The garden and its banishment, the 
flood and the newly peopled earth, and the cove- 
nant with Israel are all behind us, but we still find 
man in a fallen condition — lost, utterly lost, dead in 
trespasses and sin. Indeed, what a helpless, hope- 
less creature ! For four thousand years he has 
dragged out his existence under the ban of his cre- 
ator and with condemnation written upon his brow. 
We have read how God was always angry with the 
wicked, and we read how that, without the shedding 
of blood, there should be no remission of sin. But 
there comes into the arena at this time one who, 
they tell us, is the only begotten son of God ; that 
God arranged to send him here to earth, and for 
what ? To offer himself as a sacrifice to appease 
the wrath of his angry father that man might once 
more obtain grace in his sight and be worthy of a 
better life beyond the confines of his earthly exist- 
ence. What, therefore, does God do according to 
this book ? He causes the only perfect and obedient 
son he ever had to suffer a cruel and ignominious 
death, to appease his wrath against his disobedient 
children. Ob, but, says someone, something was 
necessary, and Jesus offered himself a willing sac- 
rifice as an atonernent for the sins of the race, and 



36 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

God very graciously accepted the same. I want to 
ask you, friend, right here and now, if you believe 
that the sacrifice of the innocent in place of the 
guilty can satisfy moral justice ? Show me the 
father who has seven sons, and six of them are dis- 
obedient, villainous, and unkind, and, if you will for- 
give me for introducing what would be an impossi- 
bility, since no father could do it, much less God, I 
will say, the father had resolved to kill these six 
disobedient children, when up comes the seventh 
son, with tears in his eyes, and says, '' Don't, father, 
don't hurt them ; kill me and let my brothers live ;" 
and this parent kills this little Jesus and lets the 
rest ^go free. I won't ask you what you think of 
this. I assume that from the heart of man, aye, 
from the most debased v)^ all hearts, there can come 
but one answer, and that answer one full of condem- 
nation. 

And now that they have this theorj^ they w^orship 
Jesus as God — and really who can blame them for 
wanting to do so? — instead of the God of wrath. The 
divine within man unconsciously revolts against the 
ideal that he says he worships, and la^'s the offer- 
ings of his heart upon the altar of kindness and 
love. And so we say we have, as the Bible picture 
of God, a being that is jealous, that is ''cruel, both 
with wrath and fierce anger," that is angry every 
dixy, that will destroy his enemies (them that hate 
him), that performs a work and calls it good and 
then condemns it, that repents, that never repents, 
that is just, that is merciful, that is of great kind- 
ness, that is love. All these are presented as a 



THE GOD AND MAN OF THE BIBLE. 37 

picture of this strangely described God of the Bible, 
and what does the believer do ? He accepts it all 
and says it is a mystery. The only mystery there is 
about it is the mystery that any man can think for 
a moment that it is true. But why does a man say 
a thing like that is a mystery? Simply because his 
reason tells him, in spite of his belief, that it doesn't 
look true, and so he just shuts his eyes and, with an 
air of resignation, and with the shadow of supersti- 
tion of bygone days clouding his soul, he returns 
to his idols unchacged and unconvinced ; for it has 
been truly said, ** a man convinced against his will 
is of the same opinion still.'* 

Let us now, for a moment, take a more direct view 
of the man of the Bible, or man from the point of 
view of the evangelical teacher. A worm of the 
dust is the comparison of one. Lost in trespasses 
and sin, says another. Fallen from grace and with- 
out a hope in the world, pipes a new voice. Son of 
perdition, says a solemn-visaged cleric. Lost, lost, 
eternally lost, wails another who sees endless tor- 
ment awaiting him who does not believe the Bible. 
"Shake 'em over hell," prayed an old Englishman 
of whom I have heard. Trouble them in their 
dreams, prays another. " Godless, unsaved, sinners," 
and many other like expressions, reach my ear, until 
if poor man could be made to believe by the abound- 
ing testimony of many voices that he was base and 
depraved, he would have ceased to protest long ago. 
I once listened to a minister who was preaching 
about the good man mentioned in Mark x, 21 : *' One 
thing thou lackest," and he went on reasoning after 



38 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the manner of the scriptures, concluding by giving 
his hearers to understand, in plain terms, that lead 
they ever so good lives, be their works what they 
would, if they lacked the baptism and the atone- 
ment found by accepting evangelical religion, he 
who so lacked was nothing but a beast, nothing but 
a brute. Now isn't that elevating ? Isn't that en- 
nobling to the mind of whomsoever entertains it? 
According to that, I suppose that all men that are 
not blessed with the same kind of spiritual discern- 
ment ought to go out and live with the cattle, so as 
to be with their kind. Well, I believe it is Paul that 
says, ^*As a man thinketb, so is he," therefore if the 
clergyman should ever lose his grip on his creed and 
backslide, we should probably see something start- 
ling take place. For my own part, I felt insulted. 
And so we have, as our Bible picture of man, a fallen, 
debased, and corrupt being, absolutely unworthy of 
the notice of his own father. But we ask. How came 
he to fall from being "a little lower than the an- 
gels?" And they tell us that it came about through 
the efforts and machinations of that individual of 
whom you have all heard, and whose origin, exist- 
ence, and power we will consider in the next chap- 
ter. 



CHAPTEE II. 

God and the Devil. 

In the previous chapter we have considered the 
God and man of the Bible, because we could not 
well consider them separately, and we find it best to 
continue this coupling in the present chapter for rea- 
. sons that will seem obvious as we proceed. We 
have considered God as portrayed in the Bible in 
connection with man ; let us now consider him as he 
is portrayed in connection with the devil. 

Who made man? *^God.'* 

Is God perfect? ^^Yes." 

Is he all powerful? "Yes." 

Did God create the universe? "He did." 

Is there any other creator or any other God be- 
dside him? "No." 

Does God desire that all men should be saved ? 
"He does." 

Will all men be saved ? '' iSio." 

Why not? "Because they spurn the offer of sal- 
vation and will not accept it." 

Then God cannot save a man if the man wills 
otherwise? "No." 

Why not ? " He made man a free moral agent, 
giving him the power of choice." 



40 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

Is there not, then, one thing which God cannot 
do? *'Yes." 

Then is he all-powerful ? " ." 

To the last question I received no answer, there- 
fore I will let the reader answer it for himself. 

Who made the devil? ** He is a fallen angel." 

Who made the angel ? " God." 

What was he before he fell ? " He was an angel 
of light." 

Where was he? **In heaven." 

Why was he cast out of heaven ? ^' He sinned." 

Sinned in heaven ? " Yes." 

Then there was sin in heaven, was there not? 
"Yes." 

Then is heaven a holy place ? 

This last question is also left to the reader to an- 
swer. 

Is the devil, then, the enemy of God as well as of 
man? "Yes." 

By w^hom was man first tempted? *' The devil." 

Through whom came sin into the world? "The 
devil." 

Who is it that is constantly striving against God ? 
"The devil." 

Who is the king and keeper of that realm of woe 
" where the worm dieth not and the fire is not 
quenched?" "The devil." 

Does not God strive with men to turn them from 
the error of their ways? "Yes." 

Is the devil constantly inciting men to evil? 
''Yes." 

Is the way to heaven open wide, and does the 



GOD AND THE DEVIL. 41 

father stand there bidding his children welcome 
home ? To this question I get two replies ; one 
says, " The way is so plain that the wayfaring man, 
though a fool, need not err therein ;" and the other 
says, "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, 
and few there be that find it." 

Is not God's way made as plain and pleasant as 
the way to the devil? "Wide is the gate and broad 
is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many 
there be which walk therein, says the book." 

Are the angels omnipresent like God? "No, the 
angels are in heaven ; they are God's messengers 
whom he sends to convey his wishes and messages 
to men." 

Is the devil ever present with men ? " Yes." 

Then after the angel fell and became a devil, he 
became omnipresent, did he? "Yes." 

Who gave him this most wonderful power? Is 
there more than one source from which power comes? 
But I am getting no answer to my questions, and 
will therefore stop asking them. 

The picture I desire to present to the reader is of 
a God that is said to be all-powerful and all- wise, 
losing his influence over his children, while the 
devil, who could never have either power or existence 
except from God, the author of all power and all exist- 
ence, is winning them over to corruption ! It almost 
alarms me when I think that such a belief is possi- 
ble among the most enlightened races of the earth. 
Do you not see that in such teachings as evangeli- 
cals offer, iu this battle between God and Satan 
the latter wins, and God suffers an ignominious de- 



.=i- >»— _y • -^ . 



42 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

feat? An all-powerful beinc; would, of course, fail 
to maintain his supremacy if he lost one single lamb 
from his flocks that wander this wide world o'er. 
But not only does he lose one, but the night comes 
and the good shepherd gathers in only a remnant 
of that mighty flock, and that old wolf of darkness 
has gathered all the rest within his realm of woe. 
where he will torment them forever and ever. " O 
ye blind guides," how long will ye continue to teach 
thus foolishly ? For if ye have no respect for God, 
why continue to insult the intelligence that he has 
given unto men ? Ye believe that in man is a part 
of God (the spirit) which hath eternal life ; if, then, 
you think that Satan carries off the palm of victory, 
why do you not worship him, seeing you so greatly 
admit his power ? If to be God is to be all-power- 
ful, then orthodoxy knows no God and has none, for 
they have impeached his power and given it to his 
enemy, the devil. 



CHAPTEK ill. 

Is THE Bible ContraI)ICtory ? 

There is no doubt that tlie authors, ancient fathers 
(so-called), and the scribes and translators of old 
gave a great deal of attention to harmonizing the 
ancient writings ; as it is fair to presume that they 
were by no means lost to the fact that a man who 
tells many and widely different tales would not have 
a very good reputation for truth and veracity (I 
trust I am not presuming too much in thinking they 
had some knowledge of those precepts) ; but their 
task was, no doubt, a difficult one, and there is still 
an abundance of proof within the books themselves 
to show beyond question that in many things they 
are inharmonious, inaccurate, and untrue. How- 
ever, as many do not so see it, we will try to bring 
up before them some of the pictures we find in this 
.book and ask them to look again upon them, while 
we point out some of the prominent features, and so 
we ask this cliapter to tell us. Is the Bible contra- 
dictory ? To my mind we have already offered suf- 
ficient evidence to enable us to unhesitatingly 
answer. Yes ; but as you can place before some 
minds a great deal of proof and they will still say it 



44 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

is insufficient, let us see what more our witness 
has to tell, remembering that each and every state- 
ment of this witness must be true and unimpeach- 
able, and his testimony must so appear, or the case 
falls to the ground, as this man (the Bible) is he on 
whom devolves the office of sole witness in this mat- 
ter. At the outset we submit (and you will all 
agree with us) that in disproving, discrediting, or 
impeaching the testimony which has been given, it 
is no part of our duty to prove that all the utter- 
ances of the man were false, or that one-tenth of 
them were false. If a man has made one single false 
statement, has said yes and no in one single in- 
stance regarding the same matter, then we know 
that one, at least, of the statements must be false, 
and our witness is impeached and we cannot depend 
upon his words as words oi perfect truth and relia 
bility in all things. I freely accord you the right to 
believe statements which you can prove true from 
other sources, but you cannot draw from unimpeach- 
able authority evidence proving two propositions 
that are not in accord with each other, as you would 
only dissolve your own foundation ; so it is onl}' 
necessary to prove a contradiction, and your wit- 
ness is undone. Should the one summoned prove 
equal to the occasion and testify with so much cir- 
cumspection that you could not impeach him from 
the words that he himself had uttered, jon might 
still prove from other men, giving other testimony, 
both the absurdity and tlie falsity of Ins words ; 3^et 
with a court which was so constituted that it would 
admit only the evidence of one man, and he the one 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 45 

on trial, we are constrained, in order to prove them 
false upon their own chosen ground, and wholly 
from their own lips, to accept the most unjust con- 
ditions, well knowing that '' the house divided 
against itself cannot stand." The reader will, in 
connection with this matter, call up the contradic- 
tory statements already uttered by the witness. 
Why is it that there are so many different denomi- 
nations, all drawing their creed from the same book? 

''Because they do not perfectly understand the 
scriptures," says my learned friend ; and if he 
should add the thought of his heart he would say, 
" If they did understand tbem, they would all think 
as I do*" 

Now, let me answer that question and see how it 
compares with the one given. There are so many 
different ideas drawn from so many different minds, 
and so many conflicting emotions of even the same 
mind, tliat there is groundwork for each who finds 
that which awakes tlie responsive chord in his own 
heart, and he straightway sets himself about proving 
that the Bible teaches that thought, and that alone, 
when perfectly understood; when tlie simple fact is 
that all the so-called mystery and difficulty rests 
upon tlie false assumption that it is all true. Once 
take in your hand the key of reason and place it in 
the lock of the door of that, to you, mysterious 
chamber, and the door of superstition, tradition, 
fear, and folly will swing upon its rusty hinges and 
you will enter into the full sunlic^ht of knowledije 
and understanding and search the old house, finding 
it stored with a motley collection of truths, false- 



46 Religion an1> i^he bibLe. 

hoods, light and darkness ; precepts good and true 
and teachings evil and debasing. It would seem 
\ that we should have only precise and unequivocal 
testimony if that testimony came from a very precise 
and perfect source, and I submit that such is un- 
questionably true. In the thirty-second chapter of 
Genesis is an account of Jacob having the most 
remarkable wrestling-match of which I ever read or 
heard. If you will turn to the chapter referred to 
you will probably see a note at the head of the 
chapter, saying that " he wrestled with an angel," 
so it may be well to bear in mind that the headings 
of chapters are not part of the Bible in the original, 
and all of them, like the divisions into chapters and 
even the verses and punctuation, are not, and are not 
claimed to be, anything but the work of translators, 
who have taken it upon themselves to do this to 
explain (as they think) the meaning as they go 
along ; so when you find it said in a chapter-heading 
that some person or thing referred to in that chap- 
ter is thus and so, please to remember that it is not 
a statement of the Bible, but a statement in 
the Bible, made by some one who constituted 
himself an authority for so stating ; and if, as 
in this instance, there is absolutely no mention 
made in the chapter of such a thing taking place 
as that spoken of in the chapter-heading, you 
may safely conclude that the author had a hobby to 
maintain (or try to) and that he was not at all par- 
ticular Low he did it. In this chapter you will find 
an account of Jacob, as follows (verses 24-31): 
"And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled a man 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 47 

with liim until the breaking of the day. And when 
he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched 
the hollow of his thigh ; and the hollow of Jacob's 
thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. 
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh ; and 
lie said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. 
And he said unto him. What is thy name? And 
he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be 
called no more Jacob, but Israel, for as a prince 
hast thou power with God and with men, and hast 
prevailed. And Jacob asked him and said, Tell me, 
I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is 
it that thou dost ask after my name? And he 
blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of 
the place Peniel [the word Peniel means the face of 
God] ; for I have seen God face to face and my life 
is preserved." The men who placed the words at the 
heading of this chapter say Jacob wrestled with 
an angel ; the text says that he wrestled with a 
man, and the final testimony of Jacob is that it was 
God liimself, and that he saw him face to face. 

My main use for this statement is for comparison 
with others that I shall quote, but one having eyes 
that see cannot fail to note the contradictions in this 
quotation itself. In Genesis xxxv, 9, we read : "And 
God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out 
of Padan-aram, and blessed him ;" also, in Exodus 
xxiv, 10, we read : ''And they saw the God of Israel ; 
and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved 
work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of 
heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of 
the children of Israel he laid not his hand ; also 



48 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

they saw God, aii^l did eat and drink." We turn 
to Exodus xxxiii, 11, and read : **And the Lord spake 
unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto liis 
friend ;" and in Deuteronomy xxxiv, 10 : "And there 
arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, 
whom the Lord knew face to face." Now, I suppose, 
an orthodox friend would say, "You don't under- 
stand those scriptures ; they do not mean what you 
think they do," basing his reason on the fact that 
there are statements in the book that are just oppo- 
site to what these seem to state. Of this I am well 
aware as far as the existence of opposite statements 
is concerned, but I am not aware that one proves 
the truth of the other any more than one falsehood 
proves another, and a very different falsehood, to be 
true. 

Let us see how some other passages agree with 
those already quoted. In Exodus xxxiii, 20, we read : 
*And he said. Thou canst not see my face ; for there 
shall no man see me and live ;" and in 1 John iv, 
12 : "No man hath seen God at any time." Is there 
any contradiction in the last six or eight passages, 
or am I a fool? Let us read from 1 John iii, 9: 
"Whosoever is born of God sinneth not." 1 Kings 
viii, 46 : " For there is no man that livetli and sin- 
neth not." Psalms xxxiv, 17: "The righteous cry, 
and the Lord heareth and delivereth them out of 
all their troubles." Romans iii, 10: "There is none 
righteous, no, not one." I like to read the Bible, 
and when I take it up I sometimes find words of 
wisdom in what I read; sometimes I behold how 
great was the folly of him whose sayings are recordiHl, 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 49 

and again I laugh outriglit at the incredible tales 
that strongly remind one of Baron Munchausen, or 
the tales of Gulliver's travels. Such stories as the 
latter have their use and are a great rest to the mind 
of a man who has been taxing his brain with ab- 
struse problems, but it would not be well to offer 
them as food for the tender and credulous mind of 
a child. I have just been reading of the meeting 
between David and Goliath, as recorded in 1 Samuel 
xvii. It seems that this j^oung man David had the 
care of his father's flocks, and that his elder 
brothers were in the army of Israel, where the 
father of David sends him with food for his breth- 
ren ; and when he reaches the army he learns of 
the defiance of the Philistines, which seems to so 
kindle the blood of the shepherd youth that he de- 
sired to meet this boaster, who, as he regarded it, 
was defying the God of Israel. The Hebrew army 
was quaking with fear of this one man, and Saul, 
hearing of David's desire, sent for him. When 
Saul saw David, he told him that he was not able 
to go out against the Philistine, who was a mighty 
man of war, but David answered Saul by telling 
him that, when he was keeping his father's sheep, 
there came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of 
the flock, and he went after him and smote him and 
took the lamb out of his mouth, and that when he 
(evidently the lion) rose against him, he caught him 
by his beard and smote him and slew liim, and that 
he slew both the lion and the bear. This seems so 
good a job for a A^oung shepherd, armed, doubtless, 
only with a crook (a pole with a crook on the end, 



50 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

with which to catch the himbs), that it makes one 
laugh outright. But this is not the only reason I 
have for calling the subject to the mind of the 
reader. We have here, as you will see, an account 
of David's first introduction to Saul (the reader will 
do well to turn to the chapter and read it through). 
The reader sees plainly that, according to the state- 
ments in this chapter, David was first introduced to 
Saul as the shepherd lad who came boasting of his 
prowess, and who killed and cut off the head of the 
hated Philistine who had filled the whole army of 
Israel with fear ; and in the eighteenth chapter we 
find Saul rewarded him for his valor by making him 
an officer in his army. We now turn to the sixteenth 
chapter, and behold, it says there that Saul was 
troubled with an evil spirit, and he bade his ser- 
vant provide him '' a man that can play well," and 
bring him to him, and the servant told him that 
he had seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite that was 
a cunning player and a mighty man of war, valiant 
and prudent in matters, and comely in person. And 
it says that Saul sent messages to Jesse, and David 
was sent unto Saul and Saul loved David and made 
him his armor-bearer. ''And it came to pass, 
when the evil spirit from God Avas upon Saul, that 
David took an harp and played with his hand ; so 
Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit 
departed from him." Those who still believe in 
the harmony of the Bible would do well to have 
these two accounts harmonized a^ain. But these 
are only two of many that are to be found. In 2 
Samuel xxiv, is an account of David's buying the 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 51 

threshing-floor of Arannah, whereon he purposed to 
erect an altar, and in the twenty-fourth verse of this 
twenty-fourth chapter we read : " So David bought 
the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of 
silver ;" while in 1 Chronicles xxi, 25, we read : " So 
David gave to Oman for the place six hundred shek- 
els of gold by weight." The difference is too pal- 
pable to need to call in the aid of mathematics, but 
anyone who desires can easily reckon for himself. 
The difference in the name of the seller which ap- 
pears to exist is no doubt satisfactorily explained by 
the commentators, but, at any rate, there is no ques- 
tion as to the statements being in reference to the 
same transaction. 

Let us now turn to 2 Chronicles xiv, 1 : "So Abi- 
jah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in 
the city of David ; and Asa his son reigned in his 
stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years;" 
and also in the same book (xv, 19) : "And there was 
no more war unto the five and thirtieth year of 
the reign of Asa." In 1 Kings xv, 82, we read : 
"And there was war between Asa and Baasha king 
of Israel, all their days." In Genesis xv, 13, we 
read : "And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety 
that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is 
not tlieirs ; and shall serve them ; and they shall 
afflict them four hundred j^ears." This refers, it is 
said, to the sojourn of the Jews in Egypt. In Exo- 
dus xii, 40, we read : " Now the sojourning of the 
children of Israel wlio dwelt in Egj'pt, was four 
hundred and thirty years." After reading these we 
turn to the chronological tables to be found in most 



62 BELIGION AND THE BIBLIl. 

modern Bibles and we find that Jacob and his soh^ 
went down into Egypt B. c. 1706, and that the exo- 
dus took place B. c. 1491, or just 215 j^ears after- 
wards. No comment is needed on these statements, 
they speak for themselves. If you will turn to the 
genealogies of Jesus as given in Matthew and Luke, 
you will find they are very far from agreeing, not 
only in regard to the names, but to the number of 
generations separating the two. The number given 
in Matthew is 28, and that in Luke 43. I cannot 
understand why some critics give them as 28 and 38, 
as it is simply a matter of counting. I think those 
who do so must have made a mistake, as I have 
been over them very carefully and make them as I 
have stated ; however, the reader can compare them 
for himself at his leisure. I see no use in taking 
up space with further contradictions of this class, 
although there are many more that might be men- 
tioned. 

Let us now take up matters having direct refer- 
ence to incidents connected with Jesus. If we turn 
to the first mention of Jesus in the four Gospels we 
shall find a marked difi*erence in the accounts there 
given of his birth. Matthew mentions it in a some- 
what casual way. John mentions none of the won- 
derful and miraculous events attending his birth 
that are recited with so much detail by the author 
of the book of Luke, and about the same diff'erence 
exist in th(^ records regarding the birth of John the 
Baptist. In the second chapter of Matthew we read 
that Herod sent forth a decree that all the male 
children under two years should be killed (presum- 



is THE BIBLE CONTEADICTORY V 53 

ably because it was rumored there was one born 
who was the expected king of the Jews) and that 
the Lord warned Joseph of the matter and he fled 
into Egypt aad thereby preserved the life of the lit- 
tle Jesus ; nevertheless we find no provision made 
for preserving the life of his cousin, John the Bap- 
tist, whose birtli was also miraculous and especially 
ordained, and who was but six months older than 
Jesus ; although it is very plain that he did not 
perish ; and it is evident that such a decree was 
never carried out, if it was ever issued. In none of 
these four books do we find the least mention made 
of Jesus after his infancy, until he becomes a man of 
thirty years of age, except one isolated case, when 
he was probably about twelve years of age. When 
we come to the account of the crucifixion we find 
that Matthew, Mark, and Luke say that Simon bore 
Hie cross to the place where Jesus was crucified, 
and that John (xix, 17) says, "And he [Jesus], bear- 
ing his cross, went forth into the place called the 
place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Gol- 
gatha." Matthew says there were two thieves cruci- 
fied with him, and that the Jews mocked him, and 
that " the thieves also, which were crucified with 
him, cast the same in his teeth." Mark says: 
"And they that were crucified with him reviled 
him." Luke says : " And one of the malefactors 
which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be 
Christ, save thyself and us." But the other rebuked 
him, telling him tliat they suffered justly, while 
Jesus had done nothing amiss, and then addressing 
himself to Jesus, said, *' Lord, remember me when 



54 RELIGION AND THE BiBLE. 

tbo"u domest unto tby kingdom." Jesus replied by 
telling him, '' To-day slialt thou be with me in para- 
dise." John says there were two others crucified 
with him^ but does not say anything about either of 
them reviling him, much less about the saving of 
one. The principal difference (and it is a great one) 
in the accounts of this matter is found between 
Matthew, who says they both reviled him, and ac- 
cording to whose account they both died impeni- 
tent ; and Luke, who says that only one of the 
thieves railed on him and that the other not only 
did not revile him, but rebuked the one who did 
and found favor and salvation through a conversion 
that he then and there manifested. Surely there is 
a very great difference in these statements, a differ- 
ence which, according to orthodoxy, is as great as 
that between salvation and damnation ; and that, it 
seems to me, would be quite marked by what I have 
heard said of the place of abode of those in those 
respective conditions. You will all notice that the 
inscription placed over the head of Jesus when he 
was crucified is given differently by each of the 
whole four of the gospels, and while that alone 
would be sufficient to prove that the scriptures are 
not inerrant, it is of less importance than many 
other differences which exist, and to which we will 
give our attention. Matthew (xxvii, 46) says : **And 
about the ninth hour Jesus cried in a loud voice, 
saying, *Eli, Eli, lama sabachtbani,' that is to say, 
My God, my God, wby bast thou forsaken me?" 
Mark says (xv, 34) the same. Luke says he said, 
^* Father, into tby bands I commend my spirit," and 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY ? 55 

makes no menfcioa of sucli words as those quoted 
from Matthew aiid Mark, and he would not be likely 
to, as they are words containing precisely opposite 
sentiments. The expression " My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me ?" expresses feelings that 
cannot be mistaken. No one could ever feel to 
utter those words unless he was filled with disap- 
pointment and despair. It is the last cry of anguish 
wrung from the heart of disappointed expectancy ; 
while the words of Luke are words of peace and 
resignation. Those two statements never issued 
from the same lips upon that same occasion and in 
that same trying moment ; and so when one author 
attributes to him the former statement and another 
author the latter, we know there must be some mis- 
take here, axid that the matter is not correctly 
reported. Matthew (xxvii, 55 and 56) says, in speak- 
ing of the circumstances attending this matter, 
"And many women were there beholding afar off, 
which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering 
unto him ; among which was Mary Magdalene, and 
Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the 
mother of Zebedee's children." Mark (xv, 40 and 
41) says the same in substance, and Luke (xxiii, 
49) says: '*And all his acquaintance, and the 
women that followed him from Galilee, stood afar 
off, beholding these things." Need I ask if the 
testimony of these three is true, if his friends, fol- 
lowers or relatives, could have been near by, or if, 
as John (xix, 25) says, "they stood by the cross " at 
the very moment when Matthew, Mark, and Luke 
say they were standing '*afar off?" Matthew says 



56 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

there was an earthquake *' and the rocks rent '* and 
the vail of the temple was rent in twain. Mark 
says nothing of the wonders mentioned in Matthew, 
except that he says "the vail of the temple was rent 
in twain," and Luke and John say nothing of them ; 
which would, indeed, make very imperfect history 
if those events occurred. What is meant by the 
vail of the temple being rent in twain I do not know,- 
and do not believe the men who wrote of it knew. 
To me it seems to be an expression both mystical 
and hyperbolic; great- sounding words that the user 
could not define. We now come to the account of 
wliat is called the resurrection. In Matthew xxviii, 
we read : "In the end of the Sabbath, as it began 
to dawn toward the first day of the week, came 
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the 
'sepulchre. And behold, there was a great earth- 
quake ; for the angel of the Lord descended from 
heaven, and rolled back the stone from the door and 
sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, 
and his raiment white as snow ; and for fear of him 
the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. 
And the angel answered and said unto the women. 
Fear not ye ; for I know that ye seek Jesus, which 
was crucified. He is not here ; for he is risen, as 
he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay 
and go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen 
from the dead ; and behold, he goeth before you 
into Galilee ; there shall ye see him ; lo, I have told 
you. And they departed quickly from the sepul- 
chre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring 
the disciples word. And as they went to tell his 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 57 

disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. 
And they came and held him by the feet, and wor- 
shiped liim. Then said Jesus unto them, Be not 
afraid ; go tell my brethren that they go into Gali- 
lee, and there shall they see me." Mark says (chap, 
xvi) : "And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Mag- 
dalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, 
had brought sweet spices, that they might come and 
anoint him. And very early in the morning, the 
first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre 
at the rising of the sun. And they said among 
themselves. Who shall roll away the stone from the 
door of the sepulchre? and when they looked they 
saw that the stone was rolled away ; for it was very 
great. And entering into the sepulchre they saw a 
young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a 
long, white garment ; and they were affrighted ; 
and he saith unto them. Be not affrighted ; ye 
seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified; he is 
risen ; he is not here ; behold the place where they 
laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and 
Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee ; there 
shall ye see him, as he said unto you. And they 
went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre ; for 
they trembled and were amazed ; neither said they 
anything to any man, for they were afraid." Luke 
(xxiv, 1-13) says : ^' Now upon the first day of the 
week, very early in the morning, they came unto 
the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had 
prepared, and certain others with them. And they 
found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. 
And they entered in, and found not the body of the 



S$ KELIGlON AND THE BIBLE. 

Lord Jesus. And it came to pass as they were 
much perplexed thereabout ; behold, two men stood 
by them in shining garments ; and as they were 
afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, 
they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among 
the dead? He is not here, but is risen ; remember 
how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, 
saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the 
hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third 
day rise again. And they remembered his words 
and returned from the sepulchre and told all these 
unto the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary 
Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of 
James, and other women that were with them, which 
told these things unto the apostles. And their 
words seemed to them as idle tales, and they be- 
lieved them not. Then arose Peter, and ran unto 
the sepulchre, and stooping down, he beheld the 
linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, won- 
dering in himself at that which was come to pass." 
In John XX we read of the same event: *' The first 
day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, 
when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seetli 
the stone taken away from the sepulchre. Then she 
runnetli and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the 
other disciple whom Jesus loved, and saith unto 
them. They have taken away the Lord out of the 
sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid 
him. Peter therefore went forth, and that other 
disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran 
both together, and the other disciple did outrun 
Peter, and came first to the sepulchre. And he 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTORY? 59 

stooped down, and looking]; in, saw the linen clothes 
lying ; yet went not in. Then cometh Simon Peter 
following him, and went into the sepulchre, and 
seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was 
about his head, not l3dng with the linen clothes, but 
wrapped together in a place by itself. Then 
went in also that other disciple, which came first 
to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed. 
For as yet they kuew not the scripture, that he 
must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples 
went away again unto their own homes, but Mary 
stood without at the sepulchre weeping ; and as she 
wept she stooped down and looked into the sepul- 
chre, and seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at 
the head, and the other at the feet, ^vhere the body 
of Jesus had lain." To summarize and compare 
these accounts is our next duty. Matthew says 
those that came to the sepulchre were Mary Magda- 
lene and the other Mary. Mark says it was Mary 
Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Sa- 
lome. Luke says it w^as Mary Magdalene and Jo- 
anna, and Mary the mother of James, and other 
women. And John says it was Mary Magdalene. 
Matthew says when they came there was a great 
earthquake, for the angel of the Lord descended 
from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone 
from the door and sat upon it. His countenance 
was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow, 
and for fear of him the keepers did shake and be- 
come as dead men. According to Mark, there was 
no earthquake, no rending of rocks, etc., and when 
fchej came to the sepulchre they found the stojie 



60 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

rolled away. Luke says distinctly that they found 
the stone rolled away when they came, and John 
says the same. In regard to their statements about 
the angels, etc., we see that Matthew says the angel 
of the Lord was what they saw, and that he rolled 
away the stone and sat upon it. Mark says what 
they saw was a young man sitting within the tomb. 
Luke says they saw two men in shining garments 
standing ; and John says they saw two angels sitting, 
one at the head and one at the feet where the body 
of Jesus had lain. Matthew says the angel told 
them to go and tell the disciples that Jesus had 
risen from the dead, and that he goeth before them 
into Galilee, and that there they shall see him. 
Mark says that the young man told them the same. 
Luke says the two men told them Jesus had risen, 
but they did not tell them that he was going into 
Galilee, or that they would see Jesus there. John 
says the two angels asked her (Mary) why she wept, 
but he makes no mention of their telling her any- 
thing about Jesus, or where he was to be, but he 
says Jesus made himself known to Mary, and told 
her saying, *' Go to my brethren and say unto them, 
I ascend unto my father and your father, unto my 
God and your God," which Y/ould seem to indicate 
that he was going to do so at once, and before he 
saw them ; therefore we have the testimony of two 
regarding this matter, that Jesus was going to Gali- 
lee and that there the disciples should see him ; 
one makes no mention of any declaration from either 
Jesus, an angel, or a man, regarding the future move- 
n;ients of Jesus^ or w^here he should be seen by his 



IS THE BIBLE CONTRADICTOKY ? 61 

disciples ; ami one says that Jesus sent the mes- 
sage that he was going to ascend to his God and 
their God. Now, according to Matthew xxviii, 16, 
Jesus' first appearance to his disciples was to the 
eleven in a mountain in Galilee. According to Mark, 
Jesus first appeared to " two of them," as they were 
walking in the country, and then to the eleven as 
they sat at meat, but he does not state whether this 
occurred in Galilee or Jerusalem. According to 
Luke, he first appeared to two of them (who this 
them was is hot stated, although the natural infer- 
ence would be that it was two of the disciples ; but 
we muse abandon that idea or dispute Luke xxiv, 
33, which says these two found the eleven gathered 
to.^etlier in Jerusalem) as they journeyed to Einmaus, 
and that those two as soon as they recognized Jesus 
arose the same hour and returned to Jerusalem, 
where they found the eleven gathered together, and 
where Jesus came almost immediately and stood in 
their midst. According to John, he appeared to the 
disciples who were gathered together on the evening 
of the first day with closed doors for fear of the 
Jews, and although the place of meeting is not men- 
tioned, it was presumably in Jerusalem. Now, a man 
may attempt to maintain that some of the appear- 
ances were actual occurrences mentioned by one 
author and not mentioned by another, but no man 
can, with any show of honesty and good judgment, 
claim that he can harmonize the statements of Mat- 
thew and Luke, for Matthew is distinctly and plainly 
describing the first appearance to the eleven as be- 
ing in a mountain and in Galilee, and Luke just as 



62 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

positively and plainly is describing the first appear- 
ance to the eleven as being in Jerusalem, where they 
were at that time gathered together. The many 
other inharmonious things in the statements found 
in these four books I will not take time and space 
to mention. Those already brought to your atten- 
tion should be enough for my purpose, and it would 
be much better that you search out the others for 
yourself, and they are nearly contained in the por- 
tions of the books quoted, and so are indirectly 
brought before you. There is one which I call to 
mind that is not mentioned, and that let us notice 
before we leave these books. I refer to Judas. 
Matthew xxvii says that Judas repented and brought 
the thirty pieces of silver to the priests and elders, 
but not getting a very friendly reception he cast 
them down and went and hanged himself ; and that 
the chief priests took the silver and bought a pot- 
ter's field to bury strangers in. In Acts i, 17, 18, we 
read, in reference to this same Judas, as follows : 
"For he was numbered with us, and had obtained 
part of this ministry. Now this man purchased a 
field with the reward of iniquity ; and falling head- 
long he burst asunder in the midst and all his 
bowels gushed out." In view of all these things 
which the reader can examine and verify, what say 
you — Is the Bible contradictory ? 



CHAPTEE IV. 

Jesus — Was He the Fulfillment of Hebbew 
Prophecy and Expectancy? 

It is a fact beyond question that two thousand 
years ago the Hebrew race was looking for the com- 
ing of one who was to redeem Israel from its ene- 
mies and become its king. About the time that 
Jesus came upon the scene, the Jews were nearly 
driven to desperation. Believing themselves to be 
the chosen people of God, they were indeed in a 
sorry plight — the kingdom, .but a mockery in its 
broken and divided condition, being compelled to 
pay tribute to Rome, and subject to all manner of 
indignities and extortions from those who had con- 
quered and pillaged a people who were once their 
superiors, as they regarded it, in gifts of godliness 
and the favor of Jeliovah. Sedition, war, .fire, and 
sword had brought a proud nation from the hights 
of former glory to the deepest depths of woe. Jeru- 
salem, the holy city, had been repeatedly taken by 
its enemies. The temple, tliat most sacred of all 
things to the Jewish lieart, had been profaned, plun- 
dered, and destroyed. Herod the Great, an Idu- 
mean by birth, but descended from a Palestine slave, 



64 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

a low, brutal, immoral man, who, by the aid of Ro- 
man troops, had raised himself to the position of 
nominal ruler, deposing Antigonus, who had been 
placed over them by the Parthians, who, a few jears 
before, crossed the Euphrates and, after defeating 
the Romans, ravaged the whole of Syria and Pales- 
tine, and even pillaged Jerusalem ; this Herod, 
himself a cringing slave to the power that raised 
him up, had indeed rebuilt the temple on a grand 
scale, but it was through no love for Jerusalem or 
the worship of Jehovah (for he was a heathen at 
heart), but rather that he might do some great thing 
that should be as a monument to himself ; but it 
was but a poor offset to the evils of his reign, and 
illy concealed the impurity of his own family and 
the state of moral degradation into which he brought 
the people ; for he corrupted the priesthood and 
slaughtered the nobles ; he created and augmented 
distrust by introducing foreign customs to the weak- 
ening and corrupting of religious faith, and, in short, 
did all manner of evil that a corrupt and unprin- 
cipled man could do who held the government of a 
decaying people in his hand. Such a condition of 
affairs could not but breed a general demoralization. 
So the people had become divided into many sects 
and parties; some were in a state of heathenism, 
while others were religious fanatics. Many who 
were hearers of the word were not doers, and many 
who strictly conformed to rites and ceremonies were 
unclean at heart, and become as "whited sepul- 
chres." Having^ lost their political liberty and 
power, but still believing themselves the chosen 



rrx..: 



JlEStJS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 65 

people of God, the true Jewish heart was not hum- 
bled, but among the faithful was turned from a 
glorification of outward grandeur to an inward exal- 
tation ; for did they i;iot remember how, in olden 
times, their forefathers had suffered and had been 
made slaves to the Egyptians for many, many years, 
and did they not know that, in due season, God 
raised up Moses who delivered them from their 
bondage and put their enemies to confusion and led 
their oppressors to destruction? And did not the 
prophets say that all these things had taken place 
because of their faithfulness ? Wherefore God had 
brought the machinations of their enemies to naught, 
and after many years of wandering Moses had 
brought them safely to the promised land and given 
them the law they so much loved. And now, while 
they lamented the fall of united and powerful Is- 
rael as it was under the rule of David and Solomon, 
when in wealth, power, and wisdom they believed 
they led the world, and appeared in truth to be both 
the chosen and the favored people of the Lord, they 
were now filled with assurance that the God of 
Abraham would again deliever them as of old, and 
they should again eat the fat and drink the sweets 
of a land of plenty and a kingdom of the blest. And 
had not the wise men, from time to time, in the 
many years that they had been under affliction, 
foretold the coming of another, and in this wise ? 
*'For lo, I will command, and I will sift the house 
of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted, 
yet shall not one grain fall upon the earth. All the 
sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which 



66 BELIGION AND THE BIBM 

say the evil day shall not overtake nor prevent us. 
In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David 
that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; 
and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as 
in the days of old ;" and again : "For it shall come 
to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I 
will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst 
thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve them- 
selves of him; but they shall serve the Lord their 
God, and David their king, whom I will raise up 
unto them ;" and again, did not Isaiah sing : ^* For 
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and 
the government shall be upon his shoulders ; and 
his name shall be called Wonderful, Councillor, The 
Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, and the Prince 
of Peace. 

" Of the increase of his government and peace there 
shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon 
his kingdom to order it and to- establish it with 
judgment and with justice from henceforth even 
forever." So they looked forward anxiously and con- 
fidently for the coming of him unto whom should 
be given the throne of his father David, who should 
reign over the house of Jacob forever ; and of whose 
kingdom there should be no end. And was not the 
prophet Elijah to return to earth to prepare the 
way for his coming (Mai. iv, 5). So we see that they 
not only looked for the coming of the king, but they 
believed that one of the old prophets would arise 
from the dead to prepare the way before him. They 
had been so long trodden under foot of the nations 
that their claim to being the chosen and favored 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 67 

people of God had become a jest to the world ; and 
many doubts seemed to have crept into the minds 
of portions of the Jews, as is evinced by their fall- 
ing away from the law and mixing other forms of 
worship with their own. One was grown weak and 
despairing, while another scored him for his loss of 
faith ; and so Malachi (iii, 14 and 15) cries out, say- 
ing, '* Ye have said. It is vain to serve God ; and what 
profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that 
we have walked mournfully before the Lord of 
hosts ? And now we call the proud happy ; yea, 
they that work wickedness are set up ; yea, they 
that tempt God are even delivered." Mai. iv, 2 
and 3: *'But unto you that fear my name shall the 
son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings ; 
and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the 
stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked ; for 
they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in 
the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of 
hosts." Now if we will remember that the people 
of that day were far from highly civilized, that that 
age of the world was filled wdth barbarity, cruelty, 
bigotry, oriental mysticism, and superstition ; that 
the people were seditious, easily persuaded to in- 
surrection and deeds of violence ; that lying knaves 
had far greater influence in swaying and changing 
the opinions of the turbulent masses than in our 
day (and the same influence is still great among the 
lower classes); if we will remember all these things, 
and not forget that those who were learned were 
very few, and those who were ignorant were very 
many ; that they were nien of intense passions^ fer^ 



68 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

vent and zealous even to fanaticism, as history shows 
in such examples as the Nazarites, who were simply 
religious fanatics who lived more like beasts than 
men, though prompted by most unselfish motives, 
believing in their ignorant simplicity that it was a 
necessary part of a godly life to eat nothing except 
in the condition that nature offered it (uncooked) 
and to wear no clothing such as was worn by civil- 
ized people ; who, with hair uncut and unkempt, pre- 
sented such a picture as loe could not find outside 
of a madhouse, we shall have formed some idea of 
the conditions of the people at the time of the birth 
of Jesus of Nazareth. For further information re- 
garding the various Jewish sects and parties see 
accounts of the Essenes, Galileans, Herodians, 
Pharisees, Sadducees, and Samaritans. We can 
easilj^ picture in our minds that people, for centu- 
ries without a kingdom they could call their own, 
believing themselves in all things superior to their 
triumphant enemies, some of them, to be sure, losing 
faith and falling by the w^aj^ only to make those re- 
maining the more rigid, unyielding and fanatical. 
There came a rumor of the preaching or prophesy- 
ing of a man who was going about the country call- 
ing upon the people to repent, for the kingdom of 
heaven was at hand ; and who, it was said, per- 
formed miracles, healing the sick and casting out 
devils and doing many wondrous works. The Jews, 
who were ever on the watch for the coming of Elias, 
sent messengers to him to learn of him if he was 
that prophet, full}^ persuaded that if it proved 
to be he their days of trial were over, and the 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 69 

day was swiftly approaching when Jehovah would 
once more raise them up and tread their enemies 
under foot for ever and ever. But John told them 
he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Those who were 
ready to grasp at the least that might oflfer, like the 
drowning man at a straw, were even ready to believe 
that in some sense, or some way, John would be 
Elias to them that believed on him, although he was 
not that prophet in person who, it had been said, 
should appear. But the more strict interpreters of 
the law, those .who believed the prophecy must come 
true, held aloof and would not recognize in John the 
Baptist a forerunner of the king for whom they had 
so long looked with eyes of hope and faith. Nor 
could they so regard him if they were consistent 
and believed the prophets of old- Then Jesus be- 
gan his teaching, and soon the zealous John paid the 
penalty of his outspoken piety with his life, and 
Jesus was regarded by some as the great and 
mighty king of whom John had taught. Some there 
were who followed him and believed he would prove 
to be that one and would one day so declare him- 
self, while others who heard him condemn their 
practices, and even things in the law of Moses, repu- 
diated the idea of such a thing, and denounced him 
as a pretender and a fraud. " For did not the words 
of Moses and the prophets come from God?" 
It is evident to me that all Jews looked for a tem- 
poral king, one blessed with great gifts of godliness 
no doubt, as a king of the Jews would be no king at 
all unless he had the especial approval of Jehovah, 



70 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

who was to give him the power to overcome his 
enemies and establish a kingdom upon the throne 
of David ; and no man can with the least show of 
consistency claim that that was in reference simply 
to spiritual power and spiritual dominion, as his 
father David's throne was plainly a temporal throne 
and his father David's kingdom a temporal king- 
dom ; and I regard it as not only idle, but mentally 
dishonest, to claim that Jesus was a fulfillment of 
Hebrew prophecy and expectancy. Even the dis- 
ciples and followers of Jesus expected him to make 
himself king, and looked for him to declare himself. 
Luke xxiv, 21 : "We trusted that it was he that 
should redeem Israel." John vi, 15 : "When Jesus 
therefore perceived that they would come and take 
him by force to make him king, he departed again 
into a mountain, himself alone." I have no doubt 
that those fervent followers of Jesus fully expected 
him to declare himself king when the opportune 
moment came. This simply shows how wholly that 
idea occupied the Jewish mind. Even those who had 
accepted his moral precepts and ethical teachings as 
just and true, had done so with the idea of temporal 
power still retained in their minds, and so even they 
expected a kingdom on earth. And in that particular 
I think Jesus gave them good grounds for such a 
belief ; although I have not the remotest idea that 
he ever meant for them to understand that lie 
would ever be other than a spiritual king or that his 
kingdom would be other than a spiritual kingdom. 
He did, however, teach, if the testimony be true, 
that if he went away he would come again, and with 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 71 

power, and that liis kingdom would then be estab- 
lished on the earth. The most of the so-called 
prophecies relating to Jesus are simply nonsensical 
and have not the slightest reference to him. They 
are simply a very prominent illustration of the 
lengths to which people will go in their efforts to 
bolster up a belief. The result is the same in all 
cases. All the rubbish you pile up as evidence, all 
the false or foolish claims you make, only do great 
harm when they are exposed ; pulling down in the 
ruin whatever there was that was good and true 
with it, unless the holders have the good sense to 
abandon their follies, which is rarely the case. I 
will give here a list of passages that are said to re- 
fer to Jesus : Psalms Ixxv, 10, 15 ; Isaiah Ix, 3, 6 ; 
Genesis iii, 15 ; Deuteronomy xviii, 15 ; Psalms 
Ixxxix, 20 ; Isaiah ii, 2 ; ix, 6 ; xxviii, 16 ; xxxii, 1 ; 
XXXV, 4 ; xlii, 6 ; xlix, 1, and Iv, 4 ; Ezekiel xxxiv, 
24 ; Daniel ii, 44 ; Micah iv, 1 ; Zechariah iii, 8 ; 
Genesis xlix, 10 ; Numbers xxiv, 17 ; Daniel ix, 24 ; 
Haggai ii, 7 ; Malachi iii, 1 ; Psalms xvi, 11 ; xxiv, 7 ; 
Ixviii, 18 ; ex, 1 ; cxviii, 19 ; xli, 9 ; Iv, 13 ; Zechariah 
xi, 12; Psalms Iv, 15, 23; cix, 17; xxxiv, 20; Isaiah 
liii, 9 ; Psalms xxii, 18 ; Isaiah xi, 10 ; xlii, 1 ; 
Psalms xxii, 14^17 ; Ixxxix, 45 ; cii, 24 ; Isaiah liii, 
9, 12 ; Amos v, 20 y Zechariah xiv, 46 ; Hosea xi, 1 ; 
Zechariah xiii, 7 ; /Psalms ii, 11 ; xlv, 7 ; Ixxii, 8 ; ex, 
1 ; Isaiah ix, 6 ; xxv, 9 ; xl, 10 ; Jeremiah xxiii, 6 ; 
Micah V, ii ; Malachi iii, 1 ; Psalms Ixxii, 8 ; Isaiah 
ix, 7 ; Daniel vii, 14 ; Psalms xxvii, 12 ; xxxv, 11 ; 
cix, 2 ; Isaiah xl, 3 ; Malachi iii, 1 ; iv, 5 ; Isaiah ix, 
1, 2 ; Psalms Ixix, 21 ; Genesis xii, 3 ; xviii, 18 ; xxi, 



72 RELIGflON AND THE BIBLE. 

12 ; xxii, 18 ; xxvi, 4 ; xxviii, 14 ; xlix, 10 ; Psalms 
xviii, 50; Ixxxix, 4; xxix, 36; cxxxii, 11; Isaiah xi, 
1 ; Jeremiah xxiii, 5 ; xxxiii, 16 ; Psalms xxxv, 15, 
21 ; Isaiah 1, 6 ; Jeremiah xxxi, 15 ; Isaiah xxxv, 5 ; 
Genesis xii, 3; xlix, 10; Numbers xxiv, 19; Deu- 
teronomy xviii, 18 ; Psalms xxi, 1 ; Isaiah lix, 20 ; 
Jeremiah xxxiii, 16 ; Psalms xxii, 16 ; cix, 25 ; Gen- 
esis iii, 15 ; Isaiah vii, 14 ; Jeremiah xxxi, 22 ; Num- 
bers xxiv, 17, 19 ; Micah v, 2 ; Isaiah liii, 7, 9 ; 
Psalms xxii, 6 ; xxxv, 7, 12 ; cix, 2 ; Isaiah xlix, 7 ; 
liii, 3 ; Psalms xxii, 16 ; Zechariah xii, 10 ; xiii, 6 ; 
Psalms cix, 4; ii, 7; Isaiah ii, 3; Ixi, 1; Micah iv, 
2; Psalms ex, 4 ; Deuteronomy xviii, 15; Zechariah 
xi, 13; Psalms Ixix, 9; ii, 1 ; xxii, 12; xii, 5; xvi, 
10; XXX, 3; xii, 10; c xviii, 17; Hosea vi, 2; Psalms 
xxxviii, 13 ; Isaiah liii, 7 ; Psalms xlv, 7 ; Isaiah xi, 
2 ; xlii, 1 ; Ixi, 1 ; Psalms viii, 2 ; Zechariah ix, 9 ; 
Isaiah liii, 4; vi, 12; Daniel ix, 26. These refer- 
ences are taken from a table in the Sunday-school 
Teachers' Edition of the Bible printed at the Uni- 
versity Press, Oxford. That there are prophecies 
of the coming of a deliverer, a redeemer (one who 
should redeem Israel), a king who should build up 
the waste places and re-establish the Hebrew race in 
power and glory, would hardly need evidence from 
the Bible to prove. We have thousands of living 
witnesses that testify by their lives every day that 
such was tlie case. (Every Jew is living witness 
to this.) Nay, more than this, they expected this to 
be done by the direct act of God. Are-establish- 
ment of the Jews, and the repression and destruc- 
tion of their enemies that left Jehovah out of the 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 73 

programme would be simply unthinkable. Every- 
one should know that it was expected that it would 
all be brought about by the direct plan and pur- 
pose of Jehovah, and that he would raise up his 
instrument in the person of the great, mighty, and 
long-looked-for king of united Israel. 

Now if, in addition to these facts, we bear in mind 
that the king (like Moses) would become the spirit- 
ual head, as well as the temporal king, and that 
through him and by him there would flow from the 
God of Jacob an endless stream of mercy, power, 
and favor to all faithful followers of his law, and 
there would be a final and supreme establishment of 
the chosen people of the God of Abraham, and that 
he should be their God and they should be his peo- 
ple henceforth and forever, bringing all other Gods 
and all other peoples in subjection to the true peo- 
ple and the true God, we shall be able to read the 
prophecies, both real and assumed, in the light in 
which they were placed by the authors when they 
were first declared. In addition to this, however, 
we must constantly bear in mind that they are not, 
as a rule, simple and direct statements like what we 
would make if we wanted to accurately define some 
past or predict some definite future event ; but that 
they are a strange mixture of symbol, prophecy, and 
poetry, and that those who are so minded can dis- 
tort to their own use things that had no apparent 
leading in that direction by the intent of their au- 
thor. These things will apply to statements that do 
contain predictions of coming events, as well as to 
those that do not, so if we will cou.siuer the fact that 



74 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

for every direct statement we *have many that are 
symbolic, and many more that are both poetic and 
symbolic (though we ofttimes only need read the 
connections to understand the symbol), perhaps we 
can understand the statements that, after Christ, 
theologians have, for purposes of their own, sought 
to apply to Jesus of Nazareth. Furthermore, we 
will state that to prophesy does not always mean to 
foretell, and that prophets do not always tell the 
truth, of which the Bible contains evidence. Then, 
again, there is grave doubt as to what the so-called 
prophets did say, and what was added thereto at a 
later date by other men. " Many German critics 
of the last and present century," says one authority, 
"have called in question the genuineness of the last 
forty-seven chapters of Isaiah, on the ground that 
their standpoint is the Babylonish captivity, from 
whence the author looks forward to succeeding 
events, and forewarns his people of what seems to 
be coming, and hence sketches out the career of the 
Messiah. They think it impossible for a prophet to 
mention Cyrus by name two hundred years before 
his birth." (In the last of the forty-fifth chapter of 
Isaiah Cyrus is not only mentioned by name, but it 
goes on to say, *'He is my shepherd," etc.) What 
does the reader think? For my part, if I should 
read in a book, said to be published in 1317, that 
Christopher Columbus made all haste to set sail on 
thef voyage upon which he discovered America, I 
should say : *' Hold on, hold on ; I guess there is 
some mistake here. Christopher Columbus dis- 
covered America in 1492, and that book wasn't writ- 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 75 

ten in 1317 by a long shot." Nor is there any pre- 
cedent, of which I am aware, by which they could 
claim such a thing for prophecy, for it has not even 
the law of custom to uphold it. When men prophesy, 
or foretell, they either foretell events to certain per- 
sons who are then known, or else they are indefinite 
as far as name is concerned. It is not customary, 
even with prophets, to foretell with such minute- 
ness. 

There are many other errors in the Bible, how- 
ever, that can be pointed out in the same way as the 
matter of Isaiah, and events that do not depend 
upon 2jropliecy as a basis of their inerrancy. This 
statement regarding Isaiah reminds me of the belief 
(wliich, I am thankful to say, is no doubt nearly ex- 
tinct) that Moses wrote the account of his own death 
in the last part of the book of Deuteronomy, and is 
indeed but little less absurd. There is another thing 
also that gives men a chance to claim prophecy as 
to certain events from such books as Psalms and 
Isaiah, mainly, that in writing of this sort, you have 
no reason to be surprised if you find a figure that 
would serve as an illustration of almost any event. 

Let us examine a few of the so-called prophecies 
and see what we find. Genesis iii, 15 : Here we see 
God condemning the serpent that tempted Adam 
and Eve : "And I will put enmity between thee and 
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; 
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his 
heel." I understand wherein they claim a reference 
here, but none exists. Psalms Iv, 13, is said to set 
forth Jesus' betrayal by a friend, and is as follows ; 



76 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

" But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and 
mine acquaintance." Was Judas, then, the equal of 
Jesus ? Zecariah xi, 12, is said to refer to Jesus' 
betrayal for thirty pieces of silver, and reads : "And 
I said unto them. If ye think good, give me my 
price ; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my 
price thirty pieces of silver." "Well," said one, 
"doesn't that refer to Jesus?" By no means ; there 
is not a shadow of a reference. It simply shows the 
price at which a man was sold, and seems to have 
been the established price for a grown man. Joseph 
was sold by his brothers for twenty pieces of silver 
(about $11.30) when he was seventeen years of age. 
Furthermore, there is nothing in connection with 
this passage that shows it refers to Jesus. If any- 
one will examine Exodus xxi, 32, they will find that 
this was the price established in the Mosaic law for 
the life of a man. (Thirty pieces of silver equaled 
about seventeen dollars.) Psalms xxxiv, 20, is said 
to refer to Jesus' legs not being broken when taken 
from the cross, although one can readily see it is 
part of a song setting forth the blessings that shall 
come to the righteous man, and reads: "He keepethall 
his bones ; not one of them is broken." Isaiah xi, 10, 
is said to refer to the conversion of the Gentiles, and 
reads : "And in that day there shall be a root of 
Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign for the peo- 
ple ; to it shall the Gentiles seek ; and his rest shall 
be glorious." It would require a great stretch of 
the imagination to think this referred to Jesus ; it 
might refer to the expected king of the Jews, but if 
this is true even, what say you of the rest ? — verses 6, 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 77 

7, and 8, for instance. " The wolf also shall dwell 
with the lamb ; and the leopard shall lie down with 
tlie kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the 
fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them ; 
and the bear and the cow shall feed, their young 
ones shall lie down together ; and the lion shall eat 
hay like the ox. And the sucking child shall play 
on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall 
put his hand on the cockatrice' den." 

Does anyone claim that these things were fulfilled 
when Jesus came? One thing I must insist upon 
in regard to symbols even, and that is that any 
illustration, in order to be true and worthy of cre- 
dence, must be a parallel to the thing so illustrated 
and a true illustration of the thing or circumstance 
referred to, or else it is not a true symbol and is 
therefore amenable to the same condemnation as 
would be meted out to other extravagant or false 
statements, although they were made in language 
that was more matter of fact, and in statements 
more easily and closely defined. The Mohammedan 
sees in the Old Testament prophecies relating to 
the coming of Mohammed ; and with as good right 
as the Christian sees prophecies relating to Jesus. 
In Deuteronomy (xviii, 18) we find an account of God 
speaking to Moses as follows : '' I will raise them 
up a prophet from among their hretliren, like unto 
thee ; and will put my words in his mouth ; and he 
shall speak unto them all that I shall command 
him." The Mohammedan says the Jews had no 
brethren except the Ishmaelites, from whom came 
Mohammed ; therefore he was the one who should 



78 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

be raised up from among their brethren." And Mo 
hammed and Mohammedanism are much more like 
Moses and the teachings of Moses than Moses and 
Mosaic teachings are like Jesus and his teachings. 
In Habakkuk (iii, 3) we read : '* God came from 
Teman, and the holy one from Mount Paran," and, 
says the Moslem, Mount Paran is Mecca, from 
whence came the prophet Mohammed. In Haggai 
(ii, 7) we read : " And I will shake all nations, and 
the desire of all nations shall come." The Hebrew 
word translated *'desire " is said by Bahador to be 
the same word as the name Mohammed (" Ten Great 
Beligions ") and when we consider that Mohammed 
united multitudinous and warring tribes and fac- 
tions into a powerful nation of which he became 
both the temporal and spiritual head, and that it is 
the only kingdom of the Semitic race worthy of the 
name since the days of Solomon, and that the nation 
and government then builded still stand after the 
lapse of more than twelve hundred years, we may 
cease to wonder at the Moslem faith and realize 
that his fiction is as well grounded as many another. 
The simple fact of a man expressing himself meta- 
phorically, symbolically, or parabolically does not 
give him a license to mislead or overstate. He 
must be held to strict account unless you are will- 
ing to acknowledge at the start that those who 
indulge in that style of expression always do run 
wild, and make extravagant statements which seem 
to be correct. Isaiah (xl, 10) is said to refer to the 
divinity of Jesus. "Behold, the Lord God will 
come with strong hand, and his arms shall rule for 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 79 

him ; behold, his reward is with him, and his work 
before him." This might refer to the expected 
time when the Jews believed that Jehovah would 
exalt Israel, but I see no reference to the crucified 
one; and so might we continue. Let each one look 
them up for himself. Here is another chapter 
that is said to refer to Jesus, although not in the 
list I have given, 2 Samuel (vii, 12-15), in which 
God is represented as telling David through Nathan : 
*'I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall pro- 
ceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his 
kingdom. He shall build an house in my name, and 
I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 
I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he 
commit iniquity I will chasten him with the rod of 
men, and with the stripes of the children of men." 
Now, this is a false prophecy, no matter how you 
take it, so take your choice. Although this proph- 
ecy evidently refers to Solomon, the son of David, 
and to his building the temple (which David bade 
him do before he died), it is utterly false, because 
Solomon's kingdom was not established forever, but 
was, instead, the dawn of its permanent destruction. 
But, you say, it does not refer to Solomon at all. 
The seed of David that is here referred to is not Solo- 
mon, but Jesus, and in him shall that eternal king- 
dom come. But Jesus, j-ou say, is the son of God, 
begotten of a virgin by the Holy Ghpst, and you 
wall tell me over again tliat old story of Mary, with 
the doubts of Joseph and his vision from the Lord 
that told him it was all right. Very well ; have your 
own way. If Jesus is not the son of Joseph, then 



80 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

he is not of the seed of David ; aud this you must 
admit, as it is as plain as a nose on a man's face. 
And so your prophecy is still false. You turn to the 
genealogy of Jesus as given by Matthew and Luke, 
and you trace the descent down the male line and end 
with Joseph and Jesus. You trace the genealogy for 
the express purpose of proving this prophecy that 
he should be of the seed of David, which* he would 
have to be in order for the prophecy to be fulfilled, 
either as to a king of the Jews or the one whom you 
are putting forth as a fulfillment of that prophecy 
in place of him ; and then you say, ^' But he isn't 
Joseph's son," and so kick down the structure that 
you yourself have raised. Upon my word and 
honor, this is the most glaring absurdity that I 
ever saw accepted by the mindB of good, intelligent, 
aye, and sensible (for I must call them so) men and 
women. Why is it that in this nineteenth century, 
with all the light and knowledge that we possess, 
people will cling to a medieval proposition that is 
so devoid of all reason and loojic as that? And 
then I remember the little fishes with their blind 
eyes and wonder if men too have not become blind 
in that which has been long unused. A man actu- 
ally attempts to explain this to me by saying ''Le 
[Jesus] was of the seed of David as was thought^ 
But the prophecy doesn't say he should be thought. 
It says he loas to he. '' I will set up thy seed after thee 
which shall proceed out of thy bowels," says the 
book. Your thought is simply a subterfuge, and a 
most barefaced one at that. And what return shall 
I get for writing this from those who believe that 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 81 

Jesus was not the son of Joseph, but was begotten 
by the Holy Ghost, and who need to have these 
things spoken? Pity from a few who have so much 
of the spirit of Jesus that it makes their hearts like 
his, though their minds are not, and scorn and con- 
demnation from the many. And yet, when I tell 
you that Jesus was the son of Joseph and Mary, I 
am telling you what to me is the truth of God. Let 
us now turn to the eighty-ninth Psalm. In the 
table I have given you containing the scripture ref- 
erences of Jesus you will find reference made to 
verses 4, 29, 36, and 45 of this Psalm. Verses 
3 and 4: *'I have made a covenant with my 
chosen ; I have sworn unto David my servant ; thy 
seed will I establish forever, and build up thy 
throne to all generations." Verse 18: ''For the Lord 
is our defense ; and the Holy One of Israel is our 
king." Verses 27, 28, and 29: "Also I will make 
him my first-born, higher than the kings of the 
earth. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, 
and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His 
seed also will I make to endure forever, and his 
throne as the days of heaven." Whose seed? Why, 
the seed of David, the great king of Israel. He 
would have to have children to perpetuate his 
throne, for it was to be "as the days of heaven" 
(everlasting). Verses 30 to 37 : " If his children 
forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments ; if 
they break my statutes, and keep not my command- 
ments, then will I visit their transgressions with the 
rod, and their iuiquit}^ with stripes. Nevertheless, 
my loving kindness will I not utterly take awav 



82 RELIGION AND THE BIBLK 

from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My 
covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is 
gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my 
holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed 
shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun be- 
fore me." 

The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah contains by far 
the most plausible of all passages of which I have 
any knowledge of reference being made to support 
the prophetic theory regarding Jesus. '' Who hath 
delivered our report ? and to whom is the arm of 
the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before 
him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry 
ground; he hath no form nor comeliness ; and when 
we shall see him there is no beauty that we should 
desire him. He is despised and rejected of men ; a 
man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief ; and we 
hid, as it were, our faces from him ; he was despised 
and we esteemed him not," etc. Well, now, who is 
this he ? Let us see if we can learn. Surely, if you 
can tell at all by what is said here, it is easily 
learned from the introduction. " Who hath delivered 
our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord 
revealed? For he shall grow up before him." 
Who shall grow up before him? Why, the man 
that hath delivered our report and he to Avhom the 
arm of the Lord is revealed. The writer seems 
simply to be exalting the man who had done the 
will of Jehovah under many tribulations. I have 
not the slightest idea that the author of the book of 
Isaiah foretold or intended to foretell the coming of 
one who, if accepted, would obliterate the Hebrew 



JESUS AND HEBREW rHOPHECY. 83 

race as a people enjoying the especial care of Jeho- 
vah and substitute therefor modern Christianity 
and its requirements, and even if men could find iso- 
lated passages that would indicate that to be the case, 
it would be plainly against the general tenor of the 
book ; and, moreover, what have those who do think 
that Jesus was the fulfillment of the expectations of 
the Hebrew prophets got to say about the prophets 
and the Hebrew race in general? Don't they think 
that the men who uttered the words they quote 
knew whether they meant to tell of the second and 
greater Moses, the temporal king of the eternal 
kingdom of the Jews, or not ? Don't you think they 
knew enough, at least, to make themselves under- 
stood by their sons and daughters ? Was there ever 
a Jew, whether to-day or two thousand years ago, 
who did not look for the coming of him who was to 
reunite the scattered children of Israel once more 
under the throne of David and in fulfillment of all 
the prophecies and covenants of which they claimed 
to be possessed ? If there ever was, then at that 
, moment he ceased to be a Jew. It is evident to me 
that the Jews did not live in ignorance of the mean- 
ing of the words that they themselves had spoken for 
hundreds of years, and then had to have them ex- 
plained to them from that day to this and still main- 
tain that they are right. What are Christians? 
Are they either Jews or the descendants of Jews ? 
Only a small per cent of them ; the most of us who 
have a Christian origin have another origin which 
antedates it. What, then ; shall we tell the Jew the 
secrets of his own household ? and say to him, 



^m^^-i 



84 EELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

Come and let us tell you what you people meant 
when you said there should be a restoration of the 
Jews ? There seems to be a meaning in that word 
" restoration " that has been sadly neglected. The 
prophecy and expectancy of the Jews was plainly 
not a conversion of the Jews^a changing from the 
old to the new — but a restoration or return of the 
things of other days; and so the prophets exclaimed 
with all the fervor of a child of the promise in dis- 
tress : " In that day I will raise up the tabernacle 
of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches 
thereof, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will 
build it as in the days of old." 

Christianity was not the answer, was not the em- 
bodiment and the fulfillment of the expectations of 
the Jewish heart, and his prophetic utterances 
would necessarily correspond with his faith and the 
hope he held within him. Why not be honest with 
him and say, You are right, friend Jew ; your fore- 
fathers did look for the coming of one who was of a 
different mould and manner from the meek and lowly 
Nazarene, but he hasn't come yet ; no, and never 
will. Your prophets foretold such an event, but 
your prophets were only men, like unto all other 
prophets of all ages, and often made mistakes. 
There are plenty of men to-day that can foretell 
some things. Any man of good judgment can be- 
hold certain conditions and foretell that the natural 
result of such conditions will come from them. If 
he has ever known of similar conditions, and has 
seen a certain result follow them, he will naturally 
expect a repetition of the same, and will prophesy 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 85 

accordingly. So the Hebrew prophets, remembering 
their former afflictions, and Moses as their deliverer^ 
prophesied of a repetition of that event, with glory 
and power greatly increased and magnified. There 
are plenty of prophecies to-day, only we do not 
attach any special importance to them. We have 
true prophets and false prophets. Coming events 
always cast their shadows before them, and the man 
of a philosophical and thoughtful mind is at no loss 
to see the approach of many events, before they 
reach maturity and are born, just the same as the 
man who has an attentive ear may hear the knock at 
the door before the door is open. There is probably 
not a man or woman living but can foretell some- 
thing that will come true, and there is, probably, 
not a man or woman that, if they should undertake 
to go beyond the limit of their capacity (in which 
must be included knowledge, perception, and judg- 
ment in whatever degree they may have them), they 
would be very sure to be false prophets, at times, 
at least. There is, in my judgment, such a thing as 
natural prophecy, but to be accurate in that realm 
one must keep within the limit of his ability. "We 
can readily see that there is such a thing as natural 
prophecy, and to the common exercise of reason, 
judgment, and foresight it may be we should add 
an agent by which, at times, and under certain con- 
ditions, the mind of man is either rendered wonder- 
fully acute, or else is, for the time being, freed from 
the influence of the knowledge of physical existence, 
and has a wider scope, a freer range of mentality, 
by which they may be able to grasp things they 



86 llELIGION AND THE BIBLE* 

would not otherwise reach. I have reference to the 
condition of the mind called hypnotic. This is a' 
condition into which some can throw themselves at 
will, and others by the influence of what we call 
mesmerism, regarding which, among the ancients, I 
will quote a statement from a work on mesmerism 
by James Coates, Ph. D., F. A. S., Lecturer on 
Mental Science and Hygiene, Glasgow : " The prin- 
ciple called animal magnetism, or mesmerism, 
being coeval with man's existence, it doubtless 
lies at the foundation of the otherwise inexplic- 
able, mysterious, and miraculous in the life and 
religions of ancient peoples." The following will 
illustrate : " The Charlatans," says Celsus, " per- 
formed extraordinary cures by the mere apposition 
of the hands, and cured patients hy hloiving.'' 
Among the Hebrew and Assyrians these means were 
resorted to in the cure of disease. Naaman said : 
"I thought he would stand and strike his hand 
[strike up and down in the original] over the place 
and recover the leper " (2 Kings v, 11). Spiritual 
powers, gifts of healing, prophecy and leadership, 
were also conveyed by the apposition of the hands. 
" The Lord said unto Moses, Take Joshua, the son 
of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thy 
hands upon him. Set him- before the priest and 
congregation and ask counsel of him. And he laid 
his hands upon him as the Lord commanded " 
(Numbers xxvii, 18, 23). ''And Joshua was full of the 
spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands 
upon him." The prophets of Israel, or seers, were 
consulted in private matters as well as for saered 



JEWUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 87 

things. In 1 Samuel, chapter ix, you find Saul, son 
of Kish, consulting Samuel the prophet (paying 
him a fee, too) in order that he (Saul) might learn 
the whereabouts of his father's asses. Soothsaying, 
obsession, trance, visions, and inspiration were ac- 
cepted facts among these people. The truth and 
value of what was obtained in that manner was, 
however, very variable and uncertain, just the same 
as it is at the present day. That which comes from 
that source to-day is some of it true and some of it 
false ; this much we hnoiOy and we have abundant 
proof that it was always thus. Some may object to 
my calling these things natural, but their objection 
is not well taken. Men make a grave mistake in 
assuming that a thing is not natural, that it does not 
come in obedience to a natural law, simply because 
they do not understand it. When they do this they 
are unthinkingly guilty of the greatest piece of ego- 
tism, or at least one of the greatest of which even 
the mind of man is capable, for the moment they 
say that a thing (anything) is not natural, they as- 
sume to have knowledge of all things that are nat- 
ural, and at least some things that are supernatural. 
These things all come in accordance with natural 
law, only they are laws that are, as yet, but little 
understood. These things are not the works of the 
devil, but some law which will some day be under- 
stood of men. Of these things I will make further 
mention elsewhere. A man may make a half dozen 
prophecies about a thing, or a half dozen men may 
make as many different prophecies about the same 
thing, and it may chance that one of them may tell 



88 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

what will correspond with that which takes place, 
and then they may not either of them be greatly 
gifted with the ability to prophes3^ Once, with a 
pistol, I shot a partridge at a very long distance. It 
would be almost incredible to many, should I show 
them the weapon and the circumstances. '' But you 
did it ?" Yes, I did it, but it was not on account of 
my superior markmanship. I have failed at shorter 
range many a time ; it was simply a lucky shot. I 
tried to do it ; tried the best I could, and behold ! 
I did it ; but were I to take the same aim, in the 
same spot, and try ninety-nine times more, it is not 
at all likely I would be so fortunate again. Now, 
were this instance to be put on record as an example 
of markmanship, the time would come when I should 
have a great reputation. They never would mention 
the fact that I couldn't do it once in one hundred 
times, or that there were many better marksmen than 
I ; but they would just record that lucky shot and 
lo ! I am presented to posterity as a man whose skill 
with the pistol was simply wonderful. And so a 
hundred men might be expressing themselves as to 
the future condition of their country, or some events 
for which they were all looking, and if one of them 
pictured things so that by sundry twistings and ad- 
justings, by talking about the letter and the spirit, 
and saying that a certain s}- mbol meant this, and 
a certain expression meant that, and that, finally, 
the men who spoke the words in the first place did 
not mean what they said, or what their hearers and 
those that kept these sayings, thought they said ; 
that, in fact, although they thought they were talk- 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 89 

ing about a certain event, whicli tliey had in their 
minds, they were not, but were talking about some 
other event ; and the way we know it is because it 
was some other event that came true ; I should say, 
Don't, don't, don't call such things as that a ful- 
fillment of prophecy. The world to-day is full of 
prophecy, only we call it by another name. We call 
it the opinions of men. An Adventist prophesies 
that the last days are approaching, when " the earth 
will melt with fervent heat, and the heavens will 
roll together like a scroll," and we say such a man 
thinks so, and he does. Another prophesies a great 
war in Europe in some future time, and we say it is 
his opinion, and it is. Men prophesied the down- 
fall of slavery, and it came, but it was their opin- 
ions. Men are always prophesying, from the one 
who foretells his neighbor's difficulties, to the man 
who prophesies regarding the fate of nations now 
on earth, or the religions of nations yet unborn, and 
still we simply call it some one's opinion, and we are 
right. 

Suppose the scheme of Owen or Bellamy should 
ever be carried out, and the people of the earth 
form themselves into one vast commune, do you 
think Owen and Bellamy would be called prophets 
of God? By no means; men would say they were 
men of perception, and judged by existing circum- 
stances, and the apparent tendencies that men would 
come to that, and yet that would be a greater and 
more perfect fulfillment of the opinions of men than 
has ever yet occurred. The difference in our opin- 
ions in these matters from such opinions as were 



90 HELIGION ANB THE BIBLE. 

formerly heid, is the difference between B. c. 500 to 
A. D. 300 and A. D. 1900. " But," says some one, 
" Jesus himself says, repeatedly, that he came as a 
fulfillment of prophecy, and if you deny the author- 
ity of prophecy, you deny Jesus also, and make him 
* a liar.' " Do we ? let us see about that. To begin 
with, we don't know what Jesus said about the mat- 
ter. There seems to be room for grave doubts about 
what Jesus uttered upon that or any other point. 
What makes you think that the conversation that 
Jesus is said to have had with the devil is authentic ? 
Did Jesus, so far as you know, ever tell anyone of 
that talk ? The New Testament does not even so 
much as make that claim ; it just says that Jesus 
said so and so, and the devil said thus and so, and 
men accept it and never ask who the reporter was. 
Jesus and the devil were evidently the only ones 
there at the time, and we ha^p no record of Jesus 
ever telling of what took place, and if the devil 
should tell nobody would believe him if they knew 
it. Nor is that the only case where there is a sim- 
ilar difficulty. Take, for instance, the scene in the 
garden of Gethsemane just before the apprehension 
of Jesus (Mark xiv, 32-43), and we find Jesus, ac- 
cording to the account, going forward in the garden 
alone, and then follows the account of the prayer 
he uttered ; but we find also that when he came back 
to where he left his disciples he found them asleep, 
so they could not have overheard the prayer, and 
whatever else Jesus said, consequently it would seem 
that the report must have come from Jesus ; but no 
mention is made of such a thing taking place, and 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 91 

as the disciples slept until Jesus called to them on 
the approach of Judas and those that arrested 
Jesus, there is no probability that these things be- 
came known in that way. There is only one way, 
for those who believe the Bible to be verbally cor- 
rect, to account for this, and that is by saying that 
the writer of this book was inspired of God to give 
a verbatim report of things of which he himself had 
no knowledge ; but such ground is untenable, as it 
is proven beyond doubt that the New Testament, as 
well as the Old, is not without error of statement, 
and therefore this cannot account for the circum- 
stance ; as inspiration from on high that would 
cause or permit a man to misstate facts would not 
answer the purpose in a case of this kind. For my 
part, I am willing to admit that inspiration is not 
necessarily perfection, but that would not help 
those who claim the Bible to be the word of God 
and inerrant. Whether or not Jesus did quote 
from the prophets, I know of no absolutely unim- 
peachable authority to oJBfer, but I see no reason to 
doubt that such was the case. If he did it, I have 
no doubt that he did it honestly, and believed what 
he said. When a man quotes a thing that he be- 
lieves to be true, no sensible man would say that he 
told a " lie," no matter if there was no more truth 
in the quotation than there is goodness in an ortho- 
dox devil. 

Before closing this chapter I wish to call the 
reader's attention to the opinion of the apostle Paul 
on this matter of the accuracy and perfectness of the 
prophecies, 1 Corinthians xiii, 8-11 : " Charity 



92 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

never failetli ; but whether there be prophecies, they 
shall fail ; whether there be tongues, they shall 
cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish 
away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in 
part ; but when that which is perfect is come, then 
that which is in part shall be done away." Paul 
evidently did not think that that time had arrived 
yet. Perhaps Jesus himself gives us the key in this 
matter. It had always been said that Elias should 
come back to earth to prepare the way for the com- 
ing of the great and glorious one who was to redeem 
and re-establish Israel. In John xi, we find Jesus 
explaining to the people regarding John the Baptist, 
and telling them : " If ye receive it, this is Elias, 
which was for to come." John the Baptist did not 
claim to be Elias, and the account of his origin we 
have all read, so Jesus could only have meant that, 
if the people would accept John, he would be as 
Elias to them. 

Now, if Jesus, in the case of John, advised men 
to accept John in lieu of Elias, who it was prophe- 
sied should come, he would also advise them to 
accept him (Jesus) in lieu of the other one who the 
prophets had said would come ; even though, like 
John, he was not that one prophesied of, but if men 
would accept him as such, he would be so to them, 
which we know full well would be true, for when a 
man believes a thing, to him it is a fact, no matter 
whether it be true or not. If this view of the mat- 
ter seems to impeach the perfection of Jesus, I can 
only say to you that there is one thing which is 
higher in the sight of both God and nian than ai^i 



JESUS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 93 

erroneous belief, uo matter how sacred that belief 
has becorae, no matter how it is entwined within the 
heart, where, from childhood, it has grown with our 
growth and strengthened with our strength, no mat- 
ter if it has become an idol, or a shrine at which 
we bow with reverence and with awe ; and that thing 
is truth. I have tried to look at this matter as some 
others do, and say that such a course was justifiable 
for Jesus under the circumstances ; that he accepted 
things as he found them and tried to turn them to 
good account ; that he believed that he should as- 
sume a prophetic character, that he should accept 
of circumstances which he could use to aid him in 
doing that which he believed he was raised up of 
God to do. We can understand that a good man, 
one burning with a desire to serve his fellow-men, 
and bring about Avhat he believed to be the kingdom 
of God upon earth, not only might, but almost surely 
would, make use of those things which he found in 
men's minds to turn them in the way of life. Per- 
haps a perfect, all-wise, all-powerful being, one who 
could change all things in the twinkling of an eye, 
would not use present existing human ideas and 
agencies to bring about a desired result ; but it is 
probable that that is what is done, whether it could 
be done differently or not. A thing that is in ap- 
parent accordance with the very highest conception 
of right that men possess needs no excuse, and there 
would be none made in its defense, for no question 
touching it would be raised ; therefore, when men 
set about to evolve plausible theories to account for 
deeds done or words spoken by Jesus, they appar- 



94 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE, 

ently believe that there is some difference or dis- 
agreement between the ideal conception of and the 
3.cts or things uttered by this man, either real or 
apparent. My opinion is that we have had a false 
conception of Jesus, and that when we have a true 
conception of him the matter will all be plain. For 
my own part, I judge Jesus as I would judge any 
man of whom I had as little positive knowledge. 
Suppose he did indorse the prophets, and they spoke 
many things that were not true. Suppose he did 
teach that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Suppose 
he did teach that he would, as a spiritual king, be 
to Israel all that they had longed for, does that 
make him a "liar?" Oh, no; not by any means. 
Do we not know of men to-day for whom we have 
the highest respect that believe some of those very 
things? And do we call them "liars?" No; we 
say they are fine men ; true, sincere, and earnest, 
and we admire them for their many virtues, although 
we believe they are mistaken in their views. There 
is, at this time, a great deal of discussion as to the 
truth of the story of Jonah and the whale. Many 
ministers of the gospel repudiate it as a literal oc- 
currence. *' But," says he who believes the Bible to 
be the word of God and inerrant, " Jesus indorses 
that story, as you call it, by quoting it and saying, 
* For as Jonah was three days and three nights in 
the belly of the whale, so shall the son of man be 
three days and three nights in the heart of the 
earth.' " Now, I have read explanations from em- 
inent divines setting forth how, in their opinion, 
Jesus could say that and still not indorse its truth, 



;tEStJS AND HEBREW PROPHECY. 95 

by which I suppose they really mean to say that 
this matter, like others, Jesus knew was not true ; 
but it served his purpose and he used it and let it 
go. I don't believe this. I make no such accusa- 
tion against him, as it would be to claim that he 
knew of glaring falsehoods that he, from motives of 
policy, failed to contradict. Why, in heaven's name, 
should I not give him as much credit for honesty as 
I give to Elder Jones or Deacon Daniels? But 
there is a point connected with this Jonah story that 
I want you to note, and note fully. The first part 
of the words quoted, as has been said, many think 
an allegory, and the reader may reckon me among 
the number ; furthermore, if you will give the last 
part of the statement a little consideration, you will 
readily see that the latter part was not true proph- 
ecy, if the first part was, for Jesus was not three 
days and three nights in the heart of the earth (or 
the tomb), but two nights and one day only. He was 
crucified on Friday, the sixth day, and taken from 
the cross in haste and laid in the tomb that night, 
where we will presume (for it is only presumption) 
that he remained Friday night, Saturday, (or the 
Sabbath), and Saturday night, for by daylight, at 
least, on Sunday morning, the first day, his body 
was not in the tomb. (If anyone thinks I misstate, 
turn to your Bible and see.) "Ah," says some one, 
" you have acquitted Jesus of one falsehood, only to 
accuse him of another." So foolish are the minds 
of men, so blind are the eyes of those that will not 
see. It does prove, however, that Jesus was mis- 
taken, or the hooh is, and you may take your choice 



■^ 



96 RELIGION AND THE BtBLE. 

of the two, as you have a right to do. And now, 
looking back over the claims of Jew and Christian, 
I see a mixture of truth and error, and say : Proph- 
ets and prophecy we find in abundance, but the ex- 
pectations of the Hebrew race were not fulfilled in 
the coming of Jesus, the godlike teacher of Galilee, 
although a greater than they expected came. 



CHAPTEE V. 

Jesus the Teacher of Eighteousness. 

I WELL remember the time when I thought Jesus 
did not have earthly parents like other men, and 
that even his very name was especially coined for 
the appellation of him and him only. Gradually I 
learned that Jesus was no uncommon name, and had 
a signification very much like one or two other names 
that were also common in those days. I supposed, 
also, that he was born in a manger in Bethlehem, 
and that the precise date of his birth was not only 
known, but unquestioned. So much for ignorance. 
To-day I suppose that ministers of the gospel, no 
matter how little they say of the matter, all know 
that the precise date is questionable, and that the 
25th of December was not alioays celebrated as the 
day of his birth. This question is, in one sense, of 
absolutely no importance ; the only sense of im- 
portance being in regard to claiming a thing as true 
when you have no knowledge of its truth. The sim- 
ple matter of the precise date is of no consequence 
to me whatever, as you: may prove that he was born 
five years earlier, or ten years later, and it changes 
not his actual existence, his teaching, or his death. 
Born in Nazareth of Galilee, the son of the carpen- 



; --^-t-;^ 



98 RELIGION AND TflE BIBLE. 

ter, Joseph, and Mary, bis^ wife ; tliat the bloocl 
that flowed in the veins of Jesus was wholly the 
blood of the Hebrew is also perhaps a matter of 
some uncertainty, as Galilee had a mixed population 
containing, some historians tell us, Syrians, Arabs, 
and Greeks, and as the yery name, Galilee, signifies 
** Circle of the Gentiles," we see that at least there 
was much influence in the place of Jesus' nativity 
which was not Hebrew, whether or not there might 
have been also by conversion of a Syrian, or inter- 
marriage with a Greek, any actual influence of blood. 
All that can be learned in regard to his nativity is 
probably already known, but if new knowledge should 
ever come to light and prove beyond question that 
Jesus of Galilee was in any measure of Gentile 
blood, I should feel like a man who, in walking along 
the shell-strewn shore, suddenly comes upon a 
"pearl of great price." Perhaps this is a foolish 
sentiment of my own, but the picture of Jehovah, 
which is presented to me by the things attributed 
to him by the Jews, is so revolting that to know that 
he who taught a so much higher ideal of God, and 
was such a light to the world, Avas of the blood of 
the race of Socrates and Plato, would indeed give 
me joy. I find in this Oxford Bible, already referred 
to, in the *' Helps to Study," the following brief ac- 
count of the Galileans: *'The Galileans were a 
turbulent and seditious sect, to whom Josephus at- 
tributes a great part of the calamities of his country 
(Luke xiii. 1). Their leader was Judas of Galilee 
(Acts V, 37), who attracted to him a few Pharisees ; 
but eventually they swallowed up almost all the 



r^- 



JESUS THE TEACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 99 

other sects, and were probably the 'zealots' so con- 
spicuous at the siege of Jerusalem (Josephus, 
''Wars," Book IV., chap, iii, § 3, 9, 13, 14). They 
taught that all foreign domination was unscrip- 
tural; they refused to pray for foreign princes, 
and performed their sacrifices apart." 

The light in which the residents of Nazareth were 
looked upon by the Jews in general can be under- 
stood by reference to John i, 45, 46 : " We have 
found him of whom Moses in the law and the proph- 
ets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. 
And Nathaniel said unto him. Can any good thing 
come out of Nazareth ?" Doubtless, when the ques- 
tion was asked Jesus if it was lawful to render 
tribute to Caesar (Luke xx, 25), the questioner had 
in mind that he was talking to a man born in Naza- 
reth of Galilee. I trust that no one will think the 
writer intends to disparage Jesus by these references, 
quite the reverse. You must remember that I do 
not believe all the evil things said by the Jews 
about those who were not after their pattern, either 
in religion or blood. When we form an opinion of 
a man by what some vindictive enemy says of him, 
we shall undoubtedly come to a very erroneous con- 
clusion if we accept as true that which we hear. 

My purpose was to show the truth in the matter, 
and the fact that a radical might have been expected 
from Galilee at any time, and that his ideas would 
not be likely to correspond with those prevailing 
among the Jews. That Jesus was one of a numer- 
ous family is shown in Matthew xiii, 55, 56 : " Is not 
this the carpenter's son ? is not his mother cajled 



100 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

Mary ? and his brethren James and Joses, and Si- 
mon and Judas ? And his sisters, are they not all 
with US? Whence then hath this man all these 
things?" Verses 57, 58: "And they were offended 
in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is 
not without honor, save in his own country, and in 
his own house. And he did not many mighty works 
there because of their unbelief." How can a man 
read those words and then say he still believes in 
the miraculous conception ? Let us consider this 
matter. They tell us that an angel of the Lord 
made known to Mary that she should concieve a son 
by the Holy Ghost, and that Joseph also was a 
party to the knowledge of this matter. Also that 
it was so well-known when the child was born 
that Herod, the king, heard of it, and ordered 
all the male children throughout Judea, and the 
coasts thereof, to be put to death. Now this 
act would have published the birth of this 
child in every Hebrew family in the land. They 
would have everyone known of the star and the 
shepherds, and would have been visited by the min- 
ions of Herod on the mission of dealing death to 
the infants. And here you have the spectacle pre- 
sented of not even his immediate neighbors know- 
ing anything at all of the matter. This child, who, 
you tell me, was the son of God and for whose com- 
ing these people had looked for generations was 
not recognized as such even by his own father and 
mother, brothers and sisters. He had no recogni- 
tion even in his own family. Don't you suppose, if 
that story of his birth was true, that he would have 



5rv ";. A^ 



JESUS THE TEACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 101 

been watched without ceasing by relatives and 
friends ? Don't you suppose that those glad tidings 
of great joy, if they ever came, would, with, or even 
without, this advertising, have been lodged in every 
Jewish heart? Don't you suppose that even had 
the matter been kept secret, so that it had not 
reached the ears of Herod, it would have been 
whispered from ear to ear, carried from house to 
house and from city to city, until there would not 
only not have been a Jew but would have known 
that the king had come, but that they would all have 
been ready to protect him with their lives ? They 
would have watched him from infancy to manhood 
with all possible care, whispering among them- 
selves that the king had come and their trials were 
nearly ended. But, instead of that, what have we 
after all this miracle and stir at his conception and 
birth ? Why, just nothing. He is only mentioned 
inadvertently once by one writer (and even that case 
is not authentic) and not a word from any other 
source, and then no one knows anything at all about 
him. He has to introduce himself to his own neigh- 
bors and brethren, and then even they won't believe 
that he is other than tlie son of Joseph. His mirac- 
ulous birth and sonship have apparently been for- 
gotten by the Hebrew race in general, and his 
father and mother into the bargain. And lo ! he 
appears as Jesus the carpenter's son ; and the ques- 
tion is asked, ''Can any good come out of Nazareth ?" 
Were statements like those of the Bible regardiug 
Jesus found in any other book, and about any other 
man; were they told of Buddha, Zoroaster, or 



102 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

Confucius, there is not an orthodox Christian in 
the world but would laugh them to scorn. The 
picture of Jesus which I behold is of one who was 
born to be a reformer. True words, those of Emer- 
son : " Each man has his own vocation ; the talent 
is the call." One who in early life was imbued 
with the desire to correct the evils that he saw on 
every hand ; seeing with wonderful acuteness the 
error and the sin, the desire of his heart was to be 
to the world that of which he saw they stood in so 
great a need. Born in humble circumstances, he 
attracted no attention until about his thirtieth 
year, by which time he had become so thoroughly 
possessed with this great absorbing idea and pur- 
pose that he was compelled by the spirit within 
him to take up that work which he came into the 
world fitted to perform. He had been in the places of 
worship, and there he saw the men who desired to 
be heard for " their much speaking." He saw those 
who made long prayers and loved the chief places 
in the synagogue. He saw those men go to homes 
of luxuiy, and he saw the widow and the orphan 
starving at their doors, and he said, *'Woe unto 
you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." He saw 
many people giving themselves up to forms and 
ceremonies, while their hearts waxed cold and they 
constantly drifted farther and farther away from 
God, as was plainly shoAvn by their lack of godli- 
ness, well knowing that when the water ceased to flow 
the fountain had run dry, and that long prayers and 
faces were an emblem of a hypocrite in him who 
turned a deaf ear to the cry of affliction, and whose 



m^t 



T^' 



Jehus the teacher of righteousness. 103 

hand was never outstretched to lift up the fallen, 
but who ever sought his own advantage, even though 
he cried, " Lord, Lord !" and with his lips magni- 
fied the name of Jehovah. He saw people toil on in 
sorrow and distress with no hope but the release of 
death, and he said, " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto 
the least of these my brethren ye did it not unto 
me." Possessed by a great nature, having a heart 
full of charity and love, the enmity, vanity, and self- 
ishness of the world excited his disgust and called 
forth his condemnation, and he said, " Ye cannot 
serve two masters." He saw a mother stretched 
upon a bed of sickness and knew that the want and 
misery that brought her there were caused by the 
greed of others and the cold selfishness of the 
world. He saw rulers and men in high places lead- 
ing lives of corruption. Perchance he had seen the 
hollow, frightened eyes of half-fed, half-clad, and 
cruelly treated little ones looking up into his, and 
with bleeding heart had read therein the long story 
of past inhumanities of man to man and the future 
woe of generations yet unborn. He had read the 
past, he saw the present, and his heart was 
filled with a desire to condemn and destroy the sin, 
the wickedness, the unrighteousness, the covetous- 
ness, the cruelty, the inhumanitj-, and all things that 
were not in accordance with, and the result of, the 
spirit of love, and to save the world. Holding, as 
he undoubtedly did, the idea of the brotherhood of 
men, he also held the idea of the fatherhood of God. 
Believing that the world was lost in sin, he came to 
believe that he was chosen of God to warn men of 



104 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the terrible consequences of such lives as he saw 
men leading, and to lead them away from their ways 
of sin and up to the hights of joy and peace of the 
pure in heart, in the realms of endless day. He be- 
lieved that he had a message from God to men 
and that he had sent him into the world to per- 
form the work to which he gave his life. This 
belief is of itself in no wise wonderful, as we know 
that the world has been filled with men having ideas 
in a great degree similar. The great reformers of 
the world all believed that they had a mission to 
perform and that it was God's will that they should 
do the work which they undertook. 

How long is it since every man who became a 
"preacher" said he had "a call" to preach? And 
this even in the nineteenth century. The belief in 
those special calls has been growing weaker as men 
have freed themselves from the ideas of constant 
supernatural occurrences, and is now seldom met 
with. The principle underlying this is in some sense 
true, and is the same in all ages. It is the man that 
has the new light that can see the darkness about 
him, and the largeness of soul, the power of spirit- 
ual discernment, constitutes a call to do just what 
those conceptions tell him is his mission. And that 
is, in truth, the work which, by nature, he is fitted 
to perform. The Bible, indeed, says that Jesus 
" came nut to condemn the law, but to fulfill the 
law," and said, when he was interrogated, that on 
the commands, ''Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy mind, with all thy might, and with all 



14--. ■ . 



JESUS THE TEACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 105 

thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself," " hang 
all the law and the prophets." 

It seems to me that if Jesus is correctly reported 
in this matter, he is not quite correct in state- 
ment. I should like to change that quotation so it 
would read that on those things " hang all the 
truth of the law and the prophets." It would only 
be inserting one word, and that word '' truth," but 
it would make a vast difference ; for upon " the law 
and the prophets ^' hung that Mosaic command, "Eye 
for eye, tooth for tooth, stripe for stripe, wound for 
wound, and burning for burning;" and that com- 
mand Jesus repudiated and set aside when he said 
(Matt, vi, 38,39, and 40): "Ye have heard that it 
hath been said [Ex. xxi, 24], An eye for an eye, and 
a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you that ye 
resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on 
thy right cheek turn to him the other also." Men 
may argue as to the advisability of doing this as 
much as they like, but all who claim the Bible to 
be true will, of course, accept it. Jesus also is re- 
ported as saying (Matt, v, 43 and 44), "Ye have 
heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor and hate thine enemy, but I say unto you. 
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do 
good to them that hate you, and pray for them 
which despitefully use you and persecute you," 
thereby contradicting the teachings found in Lev. 
xix, 18, and Deut. xxiii, 6. And so also in regard 
to the matter of divorce, Jesus is reported as say- 
ing (Matt. V, 31, 32), "It hath been said, Whosoever 
shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing 



106 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

of divorcement ; but I ssij unto you, that whosoever 
shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of 
fornication, causeth her to commit adultery ; and 
whosoever shall marry her that is divorced commit- 
teth adultery;" contradicting Moses again, as you will 
see by referring to Deuteronomy xxiv, 1, 2 : " When 
a man hath taken a Avife and married her, and it^ 
^come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, be- 
cause he hath found some uncleanness in her, then 
let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it 
in her hand, and send her out of his house ; and 
when she is departed out of his house, she may go 
and be another man's wife." You may settle the 
question of which is the best way, that of Jesus or 
that of Moses, as you like, but if Jesus came to ful- 
fill the law, it seems rather strange that he should 
annul it. And I also fail to see wherein these 
Mosaic commands of eye for eye, hating your ene- 
mies, and divorce come into fellowship with the two 
commandments on which, Jesus is reported to have 
said, " hang all the law and the prophets." The 
fact is, they do not, but are directly opposed to 
them, and are simply what Jesns regarded as false 
teachings, which he therefore contradicted and set 
aside. Jesus, then, let us regard as a great and 
noble man, a man having truly wonderful percep- 
tion and power of spirit. 

Possessing ideas so elevated above the gross con- 
ceptions hitherto held by the Jews regarding the 
obligations of man to man and the attributes of God; 
whose conception of right and godliness was so far 
above those commonly accepted, and so nearly, even 



?r- /■ 



JESUS THE TEACHER OE RIGHTEOUSNESS. 107 

now, embodies men's ideal of what God is that, 
though in very truth he be, in a spiritual sense, the 
son of God, as is also any man in the degree in 
which in him is manifested the attributes of God, 
he is nevertheless the son of Joseph — Jesus the 
teacher of righteousness. 



CHAPTER YI. 

Did the Disciples Look for an Immediate Resur- 
rection ? 

I UNDERSTAND my position when I ask this ques- 
tion. So far as I know, this question has never 
been asked, and will doubtless be considered a very 
strange one by all, and a foolish one by many. 
However this may be, let us examine the matter and 
then decide as seems right. Did you ever think of 
this matter ? If not, then let us do so by all means, 
and if you have, please come with me and let us to- 
gether look upon it again. 

At the close of a long-to-be-remembered Friday 
afternoon, many years ago, there was placed in the 
tomb the body of a great religious teacher. We are 
told that his disciples and followers taught that he 
would arise from the dead upon the third day after 
his interment, and that this belief was well known 
to his enemies, and that they placed a guard over 
the place of his sepulture to prevent his followers 
from coming and stealing away the body and declar- 
ing that it had arisen from the dead. If these dis- 
ciples of Jesus expected a resurrection to take place 
at the end of the period indicated, do you not think 
they would have been encamped about the tomb, 



THE BESTJRRECTION. 109 

eager and expectant, awaiting the grand demonstra- 
tion of the proof of their wonderful claims? Ah, 
yes ! I can see no doubt of that. This event would 
have positively proven to the world the truth of all 
their assertions as to his majesty and power, and 
set at rest the doubts of those who had questioned, 
and convinced every unbelieving Jew throughout 
the world. Had there been an earthquake, and had 
Jesus arisen from the dead in the light of day and 
entered into Jerusalem, he would have been accepted 
by all mankind as a veritable God, having returned 
to a once lifeless body and brought it forth from the 
tomb and triumphed over death. Had his followers 
believed and expected this, I say, they would have 
been there about the tomb awaiting in breathless 
silence for this wonderful event to occur. But in- 
stead of that, what does even the Bible say about 
his resurrection ? It practically tells us that the 
tomb was absolutely deserted by every soul who be- 
lieved this, and that no one was there except the 
guard of enemies that they say kept watch over the 
sepulchre. On the morning of the first day of the 
week there came some women to the tomb — but what 
came they for? Was it to witness the resurrection? 
No ; they came bringing spices to further embalm 
tile body, and tbey wondered among themselves 
saying, *'Who shall roll away the stone?" for they 
knew not if they would be able to do it, as it was 
very great, although it must be done so they could 
proceed to use the spices and embalm the body. 
Clearly they did not expect a resurrection. On find- 
ing the door of the sepulchre open and the body 



llO RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

gone, Mary is represented as running to Peter and 
John and telling them (John xx) : " They have taken 
away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know 
not where they have laid him." "We have presented 
to us Mary, wringing her hands in anguish and 
claiming that the Jews had taken away the body of 
Jesus, and of the first great wonder of the disciples, 
and then their absolute refusal to believe the women 
when they told them they had seen Jesus and he 
told them that he had arisen. Does this look as 
though they expected he would arise? How very 
plain it is that they had not the remotest idea of 
the possibility of such a thing, much less of expect- 
ing it would then and there take place. 

The writers of the four gospels practically testify 
to the same thing when they tell us that Jesus ap- 
peared to the disciples, and they would not even 
then believe that it was he. And when they are 
represented as seeing him, they still thought it a 
spirit, and he convinced them only by eating fish 
and honey. In view of these things, can any man 
claim that they expected a resurrection of the body, 
or of anything, the third day? If he can, then we will 
turn to a direct statement regarding it in the book 
of John (chapter xx). It seems that Mary ran and 
told Peter and John that they had taken away Ihe 
Lord out of the sepulchre, and these two, hardly 
crediting what was told them, ran with great haste, 
and Peter went into the sepulchre first and beheld 
the truth of what liad been told him. ** Then went 
in also the other disciple, which came first to the 
sepulchre, and he saw and believed, /or a^ yet they 



THE RESURRECTION. Ill 

meto not the scripture that he must rise again from tlie 
dtad " (John xx, 9). What ! Peter and John, the 
principal disciples, did not know that Jesus *^ must 
rise again from the dead?" And yet they tell us it 
was a matter of common report before the crucifix- 
ion only three days before. Surely there must be 
some grave mistake here, to say the least. In John 
(chapter ii) we find Jesus in the temple when he 
overthrew the tables of the money changers, and 
the Jews asked him for a sign to signify his right 
or authority to do such things. *' Jesus answered 
and said unto them. Destroy this temple, and in 
three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, 
Forty and six years was this temple in building, and 
wilt thou rear it up in three days ? But he spake 
of the temple of his body. When, therefore, he was 
risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that 
he had said unto them ; and they believed the script- 
ure, and the word which Jesus had said." Clearly 
an afterthought, as you readily perceive. Men did 
not look for the resurrection, neither do I think 
that Jesus taught any such thing ; if he had, they 
would have known it. 

What was expected by the disciples of a later day, 
I will try to tell in the next chapter ; but the rising 
from the grave the third day was by no means ex- 
pected by tlie disciples and followers of Jesus at 
the time of his crucifixion. 

Candor, and eyes open to plainly existing facts, 
compel me to see and admit that this theory of the 
resurrection of Jesus upon the third day was purely 
an afterthought — purely a fiction — having no exist- 



112 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

ence in fact, and no expectation in the minds of bis 
followers at the time of his death. 



CHAPTEE VII 

What Does the Bible Teach Eegarding the Sec- 
ond Coming of Christ? 

There is no doubt in my mind that the early 
Christians expected a second coming of Christ, and 
the establishment of the " kingdom of heaven " upon 
earth. There are many things that indicate that 
such was the case. We find that those that had 
property sold it and turned the proceeds into the 
common fund ; that they had all their goods in 
common. Acts ii, 44 : " And all that believed were 
together, and had all things common." Acts iv, 32 : 
"And the multitude of them that believed were of 
one heart and of one soul : neither said any of them 
that ought of the things which he possessed was his 
own ; but they had all things common." In Acts i, 
4 to 12, we read : '' And, being assembled together 
with them, commanded them that they should not 
depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of 
the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. 
For John truly baptized with water ; but ye shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. 
When they therefore were come together, they 
asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time 
restore again the kingdom to Israel ?" Mark this 



THE SECOND COMING. 113 

question, " Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again 
the kingdom to Israel?" **And he said unto them. It 
is not for you to know the times or the seasons, 
which the Father hath put in his own power; but ye 
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost has 
come upon you : and ye shall be witnesses unto me 
both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, 
and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. And 
when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, 
he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of 
their sight. And while they looked steadfastly 
toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood 
b}^ them in white apparel; which also said. Ye men 
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? 
this same Jesus which is taken up from you into 
lieaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen 
him go into heaven." If this is not a fiction, it 
shows that even at that early day the disciples ex- 
pected Jesus would come again in person, and that 
then would be established the kingdom of which 
they inquired. If it is a fiction, it makes no differ- 
ence to me, as it still shows the expectancy of the 
writer and the people whom he represents. In 
other words, you may tell me that this expectation 
was surrounded with myth and fable, but the ex- 
pectancy itself still remains, shining as prominently 
as ever, as the writer was evidently voicing his be- 
lief and what was the belief of others at the time 
the book of Acts was written. Tliese people who 
believed that* God had "sworn with an oath" to 
Daviil that of his seed he wouM raise up a king who 
should reign upon his (David's) throne, and subdue 



114 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

all nations to his will, looked forward to the swift 
approach of such an event, when the throne of 
David should once more be established on earth. 
"For David is not ascended into the heavens; but 
he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit 
thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy 
footstool." This quotation from David (so said), 
*' The Lord said unto my Lord," etc , is from Psalms 
ex, and is therefore rather ambiguous as here used ; 
as laudatory hymns are not likely to be so composed 
that they would apply with perfect accuracy to a 
plain statement of existing facts. The other part 
of Acts ii, 34, *Tor David is not ascended into 
the heavens," is a direct statement of the speaker, 
who, according to Acts, Avas Peter ; so take care, 
you who believe the Bible, how you dispute it. 
Anyone who has given the matter any thought and 
has read the Bible carefully will recall the fact 
that the ability to raise the dead had been attrib- 
uted to men who were regarded as prophets of God 
long before the days of Jesus (Elisha raising the 
child, for instance, 2 Kings iv, 82-35) ; and it was 
also supposed to be possible for such men (the 
prophets) to return again to earth after the death of 
the bod}', and again live the life of mortals, as is 
instanced by the expected return of the prophet who 
was to prepare the way for the coming of the long- 
looked-for king of Israel, and also by the statement 
in Matthew xiv that Herod, when he heard of 
Jesus, thought that John the Baptist, whom he had 
caused to be put to death, had risen from the dead ; 
which seems to me to be conclusive proof that in 



THE SECOND COMING. Il6 

tkose days they believed that those whom they re- 
garded as prophets of God were sacred personages 
and liable to return to earth and take up a physical 
existence. We see, therefore, that the case of ex- 
pecting a return of Jesus is by no means unique, but 
was, rather, in good keeping with the connecting 
circumstances and ideas of the times. Let us turn 
to Mark xiii. The truth of this chapter I let rest 
with your judgment. The teachings found therein 
are what we are to consider. Most men tell us this 
chapter refers to the destruction of the temple and 
the devastation of Jerusalem. Very well ; it looks 
to me as though it might mean that, but that is not 
all. It means besides this the second coming of 
Jesus and the establishment of his kingdom upon 
earth. 

" And as he went forth out of the temple, one of 
his disciples saith unto him, Master, behold, what 
manner of stones and what manner of buildings! 
And Jesus said unto him, Seest thou these great 
buildings? there shall not be left here one stone 
upon another, which shall not be thrown down. 
And as he sat on the mount of Olives over against 
the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew 
asked him privately, Tell us, when shall these 
things be ? and what shall be the sign when these 
things are all about to be accomplished ? And 
Jesus began to say unto them. Take heed that no 
man lead you astray. Many shall come in my name, 
saying, I am he ; and shall lead many astray. And 
when ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, be 
not troubled : those things must needs come to pass ; 



116 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise 
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom ; there 
shall be earthquakes in divers places ; there shall 
be famines : these things are the beginning of trav- 
aih But take ye heed to yourselves : for they shall 
deliver you up to councils, and in synagogues shall 
ye be beaten, and before governors and kings shall 
ye stand for my sake, for a testimony unto them. 
And the gospel must first be preached unto all the 
nations. And when they lead you to judgment, and 
deliver you up, be not anxious beforehand what ye 
shall speak : but whatsoever shall be given you in 
that hour, that speak ye : for it is not ye that speak, 
but the Holy Ghost. And brother shall deliver up 
brother to death, and the father his child ; and 
children shall rise up against parents and cause 
them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of 
all men for my name's sake : but he that endureth 
to the end, the same shall be saved. But when ye 
see the abomination of desolation [spoken of by 
Daniel the prophet] standing where he ought not (let 
him that readeth understand), then let them that 
are in Judea flee unto the mountains': and let him 
that is on the housetop not go down, nor enter in, 
to take anything out of his house : and let him that 
is in the field not return back to take his cloke. 
But woe unto them that are with child and to them 
that give suck in those days ! And pray ye that it 
be not in the winter. For those days shall be trib- 
ulation, such as there hath not been the like from 
the beginning of the creation which God created 
until now, and never shall be. And except the 



THE SECOND COMING. 117 

Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have 
been saved : but for the elect's sake, whom he chose, 
he shortened the days. And then if any man shall 
say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ ; or, Lo, there ; 
believe it not, for there shall arise false Ohrists and 
false prophets, and shall shew signs and wonders, 
that they may lead astray, if possible, the elect. But 
take ye heed : behold, I have told you all things 
beforehand. But in those days, after that tribula- 
tion, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall 
not give her light, and the stars shall be falling 
from heaven, and the powers that are in the heavens 
shall be shaken. And then shall they see the son 
of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 
And then shall he send forth the angels, and shall 
gather together his elect from the four winds, from 
the uttermost part of the earth to the utter- 
most part of heaven. Now from the fig-tree learn 
her parable : when her branch is now become 
tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that 
the summer is nigh ; even so ye also, when ye see 
these things coming to pass, know ye that he is 
nigh, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, 
This generation shall not pass away, until all these 
things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall 
pass away : but my words shall not pass away. But 
of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even 
the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the 
Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray : for ye 
know not when the time is. It is as when a man, 
sojourning in another country, having left his house, 
and given authority to his servants, to each one his 



118 KELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

work, commanded also tte porter to watch. Watch 
therefore : for ye know not when the lord of the house 
Cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cock- 
crowing, or in the morning ; lest coming suddenly 
he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I 
say unto all. Watch." 

In order to place it before the reader conveniently 
and in full, it seems well to make this long quotation. 
Who can read this and say it means only the de- 
struction of the temple and of Jerusalem ? Further- 
more, if it is true, who can say that it has yet come 
to pass ? Did all the things spoken of in this chap- 
ter ever take place? Did the stars ever fall, and 
have the powers of heaven been shaken? "But," 
says one, '' this should not be taken literally," and 
of him I ask. How do you know ? By what right do 
you make this assumption ? The same right that 
any man has to say a thing don't mean what it says 
because what it says hasn't taken place. "Ah, but 
you have forgotten something," says he. "Tou have 
forgotten the thirtieth verse, which says, ' Verily I 
say unto you that this generation shall not pass ' un- 
til all these things be done." No, I have not for- 
gotten this verse, that is the one I have been looking 
for, and that verse proves that the things spoken of 
were to come to pass in that then present generation 
too, but as they did not all come to pass in that gen- 
eration, it also proves that the prophecy, so-called, 
was not true. But let us not lose sight of the 
main object of this chapter, which is to consider 
what the Bible teaches in regard to this second 
coming of Jesus. The question of the accuracy of 






THE SECOND COMING. 119 

these prophecies quoted has uo effect upon that 
point whatever, as they still set forth their claims, 
whether they were well and truly taken or not, and 
still show plainly thart such a coming was anticipated. 
In Luke (chapter xxi) we read an account somewhat 
similar to the one in Acts. "We find Jesus telling 
them of the destruction of the temple, and they ask 
him, "Master, but when shall these things be? and 
what sign will there be when these things shall come 
to pass ?" And in Matthew xxiv, 3, we read : "And 
as he sat upon the mount of Olives the disciples 
came unto him privately, saying. Tell us when shall 
these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy 
coming, and of the end of the ivorld?'' Among other 
things in the reply to this question we read: "When 
ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, 
spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the 
holy place, then let them that are in Judea flee into 
the mountains ;" then follows a list of the troubles 
that shall ensue, which all can look up for them- 
selves. " Immediately after the tribulations of those 
days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall 
not give her light, and the stars shall fall from 
heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be 
shaken. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these 
things, know that it is near, even at the doors." 
Who is it that the speaker assumes will see these 
things? Why, those whom he is addressing, to be 
sure ; he does not mean their sons nor their grand- 
sons, and so he next says : "Verily I say unto you, 
this generation shall not pass till all these things 
be fulfilled. But of that dav and hour knoweth no 



120 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father 
only." It seems very plain that Jesus is here repre- 
sented as telling them that there is coming a day 
when he shall return again with power, and that it 
will be in that their present generation ; but the 
day and hour he knoweth not, and does not pretend 
to define. No man can claim that the prophecies 
regarding the second coming were fulfilled at the 
day of Pentecost, or at the destruction of the tem- 
ple, for they were not. At the day of Pentecost 
there was, according to the account, a great mani- 
festation of power, but that could not be thought 
to be the second coming, for the reason that the 
prophecies referred to say that, before that coming, 
the gospel shall be preached to all nations (Matt. 
xxiv, 14 ; Mark xiii, 10), so it surely could not have 
been at Pentecost, as the work of the disciples, as 
preachers, had not begun, and the same might be 
urged against its fulfillment at the destruction of 
Jerusalem. The simple fact of the matter is that 
this mess of stuff called prophecy has never been 
fulfilled, although when it was made (or rather writ- 
ten), such a fulfillment was doubtless anticipated, 
and also anticipated in the generation of the people 
then on earth. When this was written I have not 
the remotest idea that it was thought to foretell 
an5^thing that has since taken place. It evidentl}^ 
predicted terrible times for the people of earth — 
*'Wars, and ]'u mors of wars ;" *' Nation against na- 
tion, and kingdom against kingdom;" *' False 
prophets who should deceive man3^" Did the false 
prophets come before the destruction of Jerusalem? 



V - 



t6e secJond coming. 121 

I have never heard of any coming at that time. 
And " there shall arise false Christs and false 
prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders." 
Did you ever hear of such an occurrence as this in 
those days ? I never did. The destruction of Jeru- 
salem by Titus was all the thing that men could see 
that looked like a fulfillment of any part of these 
things, and lo ! they seized upon it and said : " It is 
all fulfilled." I regard that as a very dishonest, or 
a woefully blind, way of judging the things written 
regarding this matter. They had that statement 
that these things were to all occur in that genera- 
tion, staring them in the face, and they have pitched 
upon what they thought looked the most plausible, 
and shutting their eyes to many other things of 
equal importance that must come to pass in order 
to verify the predictions, have declared that this 
one that they have chosen fulfills them all. This is 
true of all denominations believing the Bible save 
one. The Second Adventists see that the prophe- 
cies have never been fulfilled, but they claim, by a 
very peculiar and wholly unjustifiable proposition, 
to annul the statement of the time of fulfillment 
(that generation), and so look forward to its coming 
in the future. That the early Christians, and Jesus 
himself, if he is correctly reported, were cdl Second 
Adventists, I think there is no doubt, but results 
since that day have abundantly demonstrated the 
error of their calculations. 

In closing this chapter, let us note some of the 
statements of Paul and John upon this matter. It 
seems that even in the early day in which Paul 



122 Religion and fHE BlBLfi. 

wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians, tliere had 
arisen questionings among the believers in Christ 
in regard to death. The common expectation 
seemed to be that Jesus would come again while 
they yet lived and establish his kingdom, fulfilling 
the promise. So as they saw some of their numbers 
die as of old, they did not understand whether those 
who died were lost to the great day to which they 
all looked forward with such a lively expectation, 
or whether those who remained alive would have 
any pre-eminence over those who died. And so, in 
1 Thessalonians iv, we find Paul saying : " But I 
would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, con- 
cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, 
even as others which have no hope. For if we believe 
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also 
which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For 
this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that 
we which are alive and remain unto the coming of 
the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. 
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven 
with a great shout, with the voice of the archangel, 
and with the triumph of God ; and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and 
remain shall be caught up together with them in 
the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." In the 
Epistle to Titus, verse thirteen, we find this same 
hope mentioned: "Looking for that blessed hope, 
and the glorious appearing of the great God and 
our savior Jesus Christ." We find Peter also en- 
countering the same spirit among his converts, and 
that they had even then seen the looked-for time 



^Kf>^';^v.-, 



THE SECOND COMING. 123 

fail to appear until they murmured at its long delay. 
Therefore, in 2 Peter iii, 8-10, we read : '* But, be- 
loved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one 
day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a 
thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack 
concerning his promise as some men count slack- 
ness ; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should come to 
repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as 
a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall 
pass away Avith a great noise, and the elements shall 
melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works 
that are therein shall be burned up." In 1 John 
iii, we find testimony as to the expectancy of the 
same event where John says : ** Behold, now are we 
the sons of God, and it doth not jet appear what 
we shall be ; but we know that when he shall ap- 
pear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he 
is." And now, while we must decide that the sec- 
ond coming, as predicted, has not taken place, we 
must, in all conscience, be willing to testify to the 
undoubted fact that those disciples and followers 
of Jesus who lived previous to A. D. 80 did look for 
him to come again and with power, and establish 
anew the kingdom of Israel upon the throne of 
David — in justice, and in judgment to establish it, 
and of which there should be no end. 



CHAPTEE Vni. 

The Christ Spirit Outside the Bible. 

I SUPPOSE tliat most minds who rely upon the 
Bible as the source of all spiritual truth regard the 
teachings of Jesus as the first manifestation of the 
Christ spirit in the world, and hold that all the 
manifestations of a like spirit since that day are but 
streams which take their rise in and flow from that 
fountain ; or, in other words, that in Jesus there 
first shone forth into a world of darkness the 
glorious light of the new day ; the new dispensation 
whose principles are found in the words of Jesus as 
recorded in the New Testament. Anyone whose in- 
formation of light and religion and the manifesta- 
tions thereof is drawn exclusively from the writ- 
ings of the Hebrews (or the Old Testament) may be 
excused for holding that view of the matter. I well 
remember when I did not know any better myself. 
To me, those who drew their religion from the Bible 
drew it from a source of undivided truth ; and those 
that drew religion from any other source drew it 
from a source of undivided falsehood. I was not 
bigoted in this ; I was young, and simplj^ supposed 
this to be true. That is the first and natural con- 
clusion that one would come to in his childhood, if 



73^^> 



THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 125 

he was born in a Christian land and his parents be- 
lieved the Bible. To him that would be a little 
world of good things, and all without would be a 
wilderness, a desert, and he would smile a smile of 
mingled pity and contempt and wonder how they 
could dwell there when there was room enough in 
the good world wherein he lived ; and some pious 
soul would tell him the story about the devil, and 
the foundation of orthodoxy is laid. If a child had 
first been taught that two and two made five, when 
he came to go among children who said that two 
and two made four, he would have felt just the same 
as the orthodox boy or girl would feel when some 
playmate said that the good God would save all 
mankind and that there was no endless torment, and 
the disagreement would probably have ended by 
one calling the other a bad boy and telling him he 
wouldn't play with him any more. Men and women 
are only children of a larger growth, and ofttimes 
pursue a very similar course about the larger 
themes which occupy their minds and call for a 
comparison of ideas and teaching ; instead of sitting 
down like rational beings with a spirit of inquiry 
and a desire for truth in both their hearts, to ex- 
amine the matter with all candor and good will, that 
they may learn that which it is good to know — 
which is truth— whether it be the conception we 
now hold or one attained to by comparison with the 
ideas of others, aided by the exercise of reason 
which has been given us by the author of our being. 
After this rather lengthy moralizing introductory 
let us take up the subject of the spirit of Christ aiid 



126 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

see if it is found anywhere except in the teachings 
of Jesus and in the religion of the New Testament. 
The shortest definition of that spirit, and one that 
is also very comprehensive, is : The law of love, for 
love worketh no harm to any man, but only good 
continually. "Love suffereth long, and is kind. 
Love envieth not, and is not puffed up." The Christ 
spirit, then, is malice toward none and love toward 
all. Wherever and in whatever degree we see that 
spirit manifested, then we must recognize it as that 
of which we are in quest; and accept of gold where 
we find it, whether it be in the mine worked by our 
fathers, by a nation of friends or a nation of ene- 
mies, in the quiet glades and beside the still waters 
of long-familiar lands, in some beautiful fields un- 
known, or even in some desert place. From a his- 
tory of missionary work called " Light in Darkness " 
I take the following account of the life of one who 
possessed, I think, a great deal of the spirit of love : 
'* At the end of the seventh century before Christ 
there reigned at Kapilavastu, on the borders of 
Nepaul, in India, a wise and good king. He was the 
last of the Solar race, celebrated in the epics of 
India. His queen was Maya. She became the 
mother of a prince who was named Siddartha, after- 
wards called the Buddha, or knoicing-one. The 
young prince was distinguished for his intelligence 
and early piety. The father, who thought only of a 
throne and kingdom for his son, grieved to see him, 
in early youth, turn from the palace to meditate in 
the forest, and to seek the knowledge of the supreme 
spirit after the manner of the Brahmins. The 



•.-6^;- 



THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 127 

young Siddartha is represented as deeply afflicted 
to behold the miseries of mankind and absorbed in 
searching for a way of redemption. He marked 
that all about him was changing, dying. But some- 
thing, he thought, must be immutable and eternal ; 
that something he conceived to be the law existing 
behind all the varying forms of matter, and all fleet- 
ing, illusory things ; the absolute, eternal law of 
things. 'Let me see that,' he said, 'and I can 
give lasting peace to mankind. Then shall I be 
their deliverer.' One night, impelled by anguish 
of soul for the sorrows of the world, and an uncon- 
querable yearning to find that knowledge by which 
the world's sorrows might be healed, while his 
father and his beautiful wife entreated him to stay, 
the good Siddartha rose up from his bed and fled 
away to the wilderness to be a hermit, and to devote 
his life to study until he should solve the great 
mystery, and know 'what is that great good for the 
sons of men which they should do under heaven all 
the days of their life.' 'I will never return to the 
palace,' he said, ' until I have attained the knowl- 
edge of the divine law, and so become the Buddha.' 
He first studied with the Brahmins ; but from them 
he learned nothing to satisfy him. They could not 
enable him to enter that true peace which they 
called 'Nirvanao' He was now twenty-nine years 
of age. For six years he practiced the rigorous 
discipline of the Brahmins, not because he hoped to 
obtain any good by this directly, but as a prepara- 
tion for study, that his passions might be subdued 
and his mind made clear. He then became satisfied 



128 RELIGION AND THJE BIBLE. 

that perfection was not to be reached by the path 
of self-affliction. He resumed his former diet and a 
more comfortable mode of life ; still, however, ac- 
quainting himself with wisdom, intent to find the 
truth. At last he found it. He saw the eternal 
laws of things. He grasped nature's secret and be- 
came the Buddha. After a week of constant medi- 
tation, lost to all about him, the vision came. He 
was sitting under a tree with his face to the east, 
and had not moved for a day and night, when he 
attained that knowledge which was to save mankind. 
The Buddha now entered upon his work of teaching 
mankind. He expected persecution. He recog- 
nized among men three classes ; those who were on 
the way to truth and did not need him ; those who 
were wedded to error and would not hear him, and 
those who were tossing in doubt and anxiety, still 
looking for the light ; these last the Buddha went 
forth to aid. It is agreed that the Buddha died at 
the age of eighty, and the time is fixed at 543 B. C. 
Immediately after his death a council of his follow- 
ers assembled to fix the doctrines and discipline of 
Budhism, for Sakya-muni had written nothing. 
The world had received his teachings only orally. 
The council sat for seven months, and as the result 
of their communing and deliberation they were 
able to commit to writing all the teachings of the 
Buddha. Upali gave all his precepts upon morals 
and discipline. Ananda gave all his doctrines, and 
Kasyapa was able to announce all the philosophy 
aod metaphysics of the system." 

A hundred years later a general council was called 



THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 129 

to correct abuses and errors wliicli had crept into 
the system, when ten thousand false teachers were 
cut off. About two hundred years later a third 
general council w^as held, and sixty thousand schis- 
matics were driven from the order. After the third 
great council. Buddhism having become the religion 
of India, missionaries were sent to other lands. 
The sacred histories, in the hands of the Buddh- 
ists, give the names of these missionaries and record 
their successes. Such is, in brief, the history of the 
rise of Buddhism as gathered from the Buddhists' 
histories. Whatever glamour religious sentiment has 
thrown around that history, the following facts 
must be confessed : Buddhism took its rise from 
some great teacher about the beginning of the sixth 
century before Christ. It began in India, and, for 
a time, advanced with wonderful rapidity, becoming, 
under the great Buddhist emperor, Asoka, the state 
religion of the empire. It had a great missionary 
zeal, and although Brahminism rallied and drove it 
out of India, it went to the Burman empire, Anam, 
Siam, Ceylon, Thibet, China, Japan, and, in short, 
to all eastern Asia, and became the religion of the 
majority of all Mongol nations, and has to-day the 
largest following of any heathen religion, and nearly 
twice as great a following as Brahminism. And it 
is an interesting fact that while Buddhist books 
give the names and relate the actions of their great 
missionaries, the relics recently discovered in some 
of their topes confirm the record. What, then, are 
the essential teachings of Buddhism? Siddartha 
saw and felt, and even magnified, the evil that is in 



130 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the world. He sought to find a way to escape this 
evil. The hope of escape through self- affliction, 
and countless transmigrations of affliction and toil, 
did not satisfy him. Of the life which lay beyond 
he knew nothing. Of the eternal world of absolute 
being he knew nothing. Man must find happiness 
here and now, not in another sphere or another life. 
How was happiness to be found? By understand- 
ing the order of that system to which we belong, 
and acting in harmony with it. Siddartha said : " If 
I can understand the eternal laws of nature, I can 
save mankind." Here, then, is the basis of Buddh- 
ism — knowledge of nature's laws and conformity to 
them. It looks to the present and seeks to make 
life pleasant. In this, however, it has not adopted 
the motto of the epicurean, "Eat, drink, and be 
merry." It recognizes the spiritual life. It does 
not believe that death ends all. It even holds the 
doctrine of transmigration and of Karma, a law in- 
herent in nature, to bring upon man the consequence 
of every act he may perform. But to find the way 
of living right, and so to rest from fear of the future, 
is what Buddhism proposes ; and this way of right 
living cannot be one which increases man's afflic- 
tions in the present state, for the eternal, unchange- 
able laws of nature are now asserting themselves, 
and in that which conduces to thehigjhest good here, 
points the way to the highest good hereafter. This 
system, therefore, has its morality ; and, indeed, it 
belongs to it, for the reasons already shown, to teach 
morality rather than theology. Its morality is kind- 
ness. This life is full of evil ; let us, therefore, 



^'^.- 



THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 131 

make it as tolerable as we may. The doctrinal basis 
of Buddlnsm is thus annouDced : 

1. All existence is evil, because all existence is 
subject to change and decay. 

2. The source of this evil is the desire for things 
wliicli are to change and pass away. 

3. The desire and the evil which follow it are not 
inevitable, for if we choose we can arrive at Nirvana, 
when both shall wholly cease. 

4. There is a fixed and certain method to adopt, 
by pursuing which we attain this end without pos- 
sibility of failure. In the way of effort to attain 
the true good, or to enter into Nirvana, eight steps 
are prescribed. 

1. Eight belief, or correct faith. 

2. Eight judgment, or wise application of that 
faith to life. 

3. Eight utterance, or perfect truth in all we say 
or do. 

4. Eight motives, or proposing always a proper 
end and aim. 

5. Eight occupation, or an outward life not involv- 
ing sin. 

6. Eight obedience, or faithful obedience of duty. 

7. Eight memory, or a proper recollection of past 
conduct. 

8. Eight meditation, or keeping the mind fixed on 
permanent truth. 

Buddhism has five commandments which apply to 
all men, viz.: 1. Do not kill ; 2. Do not steal ; 3. Do 
not commit adultery ; 4. Do not lie ; 5. Do not be- 
come intoxicated. Besides these it has five com- 



132 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

mandments for tlie novices to direct them in their 
exercises, viz.: 1. Do not take solid food in the 
afternoon ; 2. Do not visit dances, singing, or theat- 
rical representations ; 3. Do not nse ornaments or 
perfumery in dress ; 4. Use no luxurious beds ; 5. 
Do not accept gold or silver. 

These precepts have been commented upon and 
expounded by Buddhist writers through hundreds 
of volumes, and they have been made texts for teach- 
ing in regard to every duty the priests have desired 
to enforce. The spirit of Buddhism is mild and 
humane. It struck at the institution of caste, as- 
serting the common rights of all men. It recog-. 
nized the equal claim of all men to religious privi- 
leges. It admits all classes to its priesthood. It 
teaches kindness and respect for the poor and the 
aged, and buihis asylums for the suffering. It abol- 
ishes human sacrifices and all sacrifices of blood. 
Its innocent altars are croAvned only with flowers 
and leaves. It enjoins the erection of houses for 
travelers, and tLe planting of trees for the use of 
those who may come after. 

Of Buddhism in Burmah, Mr. Malcolm, a Baptist 
missionary, says : ''I saw no intemperance in Bur- 
mah, though an intoxicating liquor is made easily 
from the juice of a palm. A man may travel from 
one end of the kingdom to the other without money, 
feeding and lodging as well as the people. I have 
seen thousands together for hours, on public occa- 
sions, rejoicing in all ardor, and no act of violence 
or case of intoxication. During my whole residence 
in the country I never saw an indecent act or immod- 



THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 133 

est gesture in man or woman. I have seen hun- 
dreds of men and women bathing, and no immodest 
or careless act. Children are treated with great 
kindness, not only by the mother, but by the father, 
who, when "unemployed, takes the young children in 
his arms and seems pleased to attend to them, or sit 
unemployed at their side. I have as often seen 
fathers caressing female infants as male. A widow 
with male and female children is more likely to be 
sought in marriage than if she has none. The aged 
are treated with great care and tenderness, and oc- 
cupy the best places at all assemblies. The Buddha 
himself was wont to say, ' My law is a law of grace 
for all.' He taught men to seek their highest good 
in patience and kindness, in refraining from sensual 
excesses, and in doing good toothers. He purposed 
and accomplished a great reform upon Braliminism." 
What think you of these teachings ? How do they 
compare with the teachings of the Old Testament ? 
At a time when the Hebrew nation was just strag- 
gling back from idolatry under the lash of the most 
fearful condemnation of Jehovah, back to a teaching 
as corrupt and cruel as the teachings commanding 
or commending the slaughter of helpless women and 
children, back to the teachings of an eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth, back to the conception of 
the personification of love and power (God) as a be- 
ing filled with wrath toward all who had sinned ; 
away from these scenes and these precepts we 
turn our gaze, and rest it upon Siddartha of India, 
teaching kindness, and mercy, and peace ; and we 
hear him say, " My law is a law of grace for all." 



134 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

We see liim leaving his palace and fleeing away to 
the wilderness to devote his life to trying to solve 
the mysteries of existence and save mankind. I 
have read the history of a great many religions, and 
I have yet to find one whose founder showed purer 
motives, a more earnest desire, an ear more open to 
the cry of humanity, or a heart more deeply touched 
by the miseries he so much desired to relieve. " By 
their fruits ye shall know them," says the book, and 
I turn back the page and read again the testimony 
of the Baptist missionary and ask of all Christen- 
dom to show me the like. "But," says one, " there 
are also vile men who are Buddhists, men who are 
thieves, robbers and murderers." 'No, there are not, 
and never were, any more than there are Christians 
who are robbers, thieves, and murderers. Doubtless 
many cruel things have been done by men who were 
called Buddhists, but they were not Buddhists, be- 
cause their acts w^ere not in accordance with the 
spirit and teachings of the son of the king of India. 
I have yet to learn ihat ever in the name of Buddha 
have there been slaughters of the defenseless and 
infirm, heartless butcheries, the Inquisition, the 
fagot, and the rack, the burning oil, the pillory, 
and the stake ; and 3'et I am compelled with shame 
to own that all these and more have been done in 
the name of the meek and lowly Nazarene. Done 
by men who called themselves Christians, but, thank 
heaven, they were not Christians, though their 
breasts were bespangled with emblems of the cross, 
and they prayed as they slaughtered, in mockery of 
him who said, ''Whatsoever ye would that men 



THE CHEIST SPIRIl*. 135 

should do unto you do ye even so unto them." It 
was retaining the Old Testament with its teachings 
of blood and slaughter that caused men to think 
they were doing God service in the damnable deeds 
of the church of Rome for centuries. Had the Old 
Testament, with its hideous conception of God, been 
buried in the midst of the sea eighteen hundred 
years ago, the deeds that are a disgrace to the name 
of humanity never would have been performed in 
the name of Jesus of Galilee. And now as we com- 
pare the pictures that the comparisons have called 
up, let us be honest with ourselves and with mankind 
and say : In the life and teaching of Buddha there 
is, indeed, a bountiful manifestation of the spirit of 
love, and that spirit is in truth the Christ spirit, 
although it was manifested in India six hundred 
years before Jesus was born. The teachings of the 
Persian religion, the great prophet of which was 
Zoroaster, contain more of the spirit of love than 
is found in the Mosaic teachings, for, although they 
believed in a hell, they also believed that those who 
went there would be purified by the fire, and ulti- 
mately pass on to heaven and be happy in the uni- 
versal family of mankind. So we see that there 
were Universalists in the world at a very early date. 
I do not forget, while making these statements, that 
there is a line in the Mosaic books, so called, that 
says " thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ;" 
and among so much cruelty one might well marvel 
at finding such a statement, and very strongly sus- 
pect that it was a modern addition, as it does not 
agree with the prevailing ideas of the supposed 



136 RELIGION ANt> THE BIBLE. 

author, unless, indeed, you use the word neighbor 
in a very limited sense (and an untrue one also) and 
say it simply means that the Jew should not ill-use 
the Jew ; and as the Jew did not recognize anyone 
else as a neighbor, very likely this would give us 
the correct idea of the writer of this passage that at 
first glance seems to partake of a broad and Chris- 
tian spirit. In Leviticus xix, 18, we read : " Thou 
shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the 
children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." This very plainly indicates 
that the neighbor, as here called, was only the " chil- 
dren of thy people," as the command that they 
should not avenge or bear any grudge against tJiem 
is a very different matter than it would be if it for- 
bade it against any man, and shows unquestionably 
that these streaks of goodness were very narrow, 
and only to be applied to the Israelites, by the 
Israelites. And somewhat similar rules exist 
among most races, even among savages ; and I have 
heard that there is honor also among thieves ; and 
while their code permits them to steal from all 
others, they must not steal from one another, which 
is about like this matter of the ancient Israelite 
loving his neighbor. This false teaching, regarding 
who is a man's neighbor, Jesus corrects in the para- 
ble of the good Samaritan in Luke x. The com- 
mand to love thy neiglibor as thyself being referred 
to, a certain lawyer asked Jesus, " Who is my 
neiglibor ?" The lawyer, as a follower of Leviticus, 
regarded only his brother Israelite as his neighbor ; 
but Jesus, in the beautiful parable of the man who 



THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 137 

went from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among 
thieves, who robbed him and stripped him of his rai- 
ment, leaving him wounded and dying, shows how 
the priest and Levite passed by on the other side, 
leaving the man to suffer and die alone, while a 
Samaritan, an enemy of the Jew, who chanced to 
pass that way, had compassion on him and bound 
up his wounds and set him on his beast and brought 
him to an inn and bade the keeper care for the man 
and he would repay him ; convincing even the law- 
yer that the neighbor unto the man who fell among 
thieves was the one who had mercy on him, show- 
that the true priest is not always of the temple, or 
the true neighbor of the children of Israel, but that 
he is thy neighbor who shows forth the spirit of 
brotherly love, unrestricted and unrestrained by the 
narrow limits of an age of darkness or the opinions 
of the past. For my part, the spirit of the teachings 
of Socrates and Plato excel by far the teachings 
of the Hebrew writers of the Old Testament in the 
manifestation of the spirit of love. Free from the 
vindictiveness and wrath of the believer in the 
Jehovah of the Jew, they shed forth the light and 
life of the teachings of Jesus. Zeller tells us that, 
according to Plato, Socrates taught that a man 
should do no evil to his enemy, which is simply the 
law of returning good for evil ; and this by a man 
born 470 B. c. There is not only in the life and 
teachings of Socrates a resemblance to Jesus, but 
the resemblance continues even in the accounts of 
their deaths, Socrq^tes being tried for introducing 



138 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

new deities and denying the existence of the gods 
of the state and corrupting the youth. 

He refused to take any measures of defense before 
the court, which, if taken, would have doubtless 
saved his life ; refused to escape from prison be- 
cause it was contrary to law, and drank his hemlock 
(poison provided for the purpose, so that each man 
should be his own executioner) with philosophic 
equanimity. Zeller also tells us that Plato, born 
427 B. c, taught that a reward was assured to virtue 
in this world and the next ; that the just man would 
be happier than the unjust if he were treated by 
gods and men like the unjust, and the unjust re- 
ceived the reward of the just. To do injustice is 
worse than to suffer injustice ; and to be punished 
for a misdeed is better than to go unpunished. For 
as being the beauty and health of the soul, virtue is 
at once happiness ; it brings its reward with it, as 
vice brings punishment. It is the rule of the divine 
in man over the animal, and as such the only thing 
that makes us free and rich and assures us lasting 
peace and repose of mind. The Greek philoso- 
phers also taught there was more pleasure in be- 
stowing a gift than in receiving one. Aristotle, 
born 384 B. c, taught that man in his nature is a 
social being, and even that every man is related and 
friendly to every other, and that a common justice 
unites all men. From the '* Ten Great Religions" 
I take the following quotation: '*Ackermann, in 
' The Christian Element in Plato,' says : ' The Pla- 
tonic theolog}^ is strikingl}^ near that of Christian- 
ity in regard to God's being, existence, name, and 



THE CHRIST SPIRIT. 139 

attributes.' As regards the existence of God, lie 
argues from the movements of nature for the neces- 
sity of an original principle of motion. But the 
real Platonic faith in God, like that of the Bible, 
rests on immediate knowledge. He gives no defi- 
nition of the essence of God, but says : 'To find the 
Maker and Father of this All is hard. But the idea 
of goodness is the best expression, as is also that of 
being, though neither is adequate. The visible sun 
is the image and child of the God Being. Just so 
the scripture calls God the Father of light.' " There- 
fore we see that there lived men long before our era 
who taught that you should return good for evil ; 
that the just man would reap his reward ; that as 
men sow, so shall they also reap ; that it is more 
blessed to give than to receive, and that humanity 
was one vast brotherhood ; that the Christ spirit 
was abroad in the world teaching those who would 
listen the gospel of truth and the law of love. 
Great teachers had Arisen and shed abroad the light 
of a more perfect ideal of God, and of man's duty to 
his fellow-men, and the way of life and peace. 
Some, as in the case of Buddha, had been accepted 
as true teachers ; others had been cruelly dealt 
with and put to death, and when Jesus came forth 
from his humble home in Galilee, teaching the ad- 
vanced thoughts and precepts of Christianity, those 
people who had '^ Moses and the prophets " for a 
guide to life everlasting, condemned him, and put 
him to death as a seducer, or one who seeks to sully 
the purity of the faith, which, according to Jewish 
law, was punishable with death. And so it came to 



140 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

pass tliat after the Hebrews and those of kindred 
blood refused to accept the teachings of Jesus, there 
was found in the land of the " heathen," in the land 
of Socrates and Plato, and even in '* Pagan" Home, 
a multitude of minds that had been prepared to 
accept that which the blood of Israel and Judea 
rejected ; while Ishmael chose Mohammed, because 
he was " a prophet like unto me " (Moses), showing 
that while the Christ spirit was abroad in the 
world, the Hebrew race, despite their ancient con- 
ceit of being (as they thought) the chosen people 
of God, had not enough of it in their hearts to 
recognize it when it was presented, but continued 
to worship at the shrine of an eye for an eye and 
a tooth for a tooth, with the blood of the helpless 
children of Midian on their hands, and their cries 
for mercy ringing in their ears ; while the law of 
love came and went unaccepted and unreceived, be- 
cause it was not in harmony ^ith the teachings of 
their barbarian ancestors which they in their igno- 
rance believed to be the word of God. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

What Is the Bible? 

The Bible is the emanations from the minds of 
many men, containing statements true and statements 
false ; ideas great and ideas small ; sayings wise and 
sayings foolish ; a mixture of fact and fiction, and 
the philosophy and conceptions of many ancient 
minds — Hebrews, Persians, and Egyptians. Con- 
sidered as a whole, it contains words of love, mercy, 
and compassion ; and also words more cruel and re- 
lentless than the tiger who lies in wait and springs 
upon his prey to suck his blood and break his bones. 

It no doubt contains quite a good deal of history, 
mixed up with laudatory or comdemnatory state- 
ments regarding individuals and nations, which are 
not strictly in accordance with facts, but accorded 
ywith the opinion of the writer or someone who had 
preserved the account as it was handed down from 
father to son, probably losing nothing in size as it 
journeyed. All that is said of God is simply the 
opinions of those men who uttered or wrote the 
words which we read, and likewise all that is said 
of the creation is the opinions of men, and very poor 
opinions at that. The man, now, who could not get 
up or evolve a better idea of the origin of man than 



142 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the biblical account of creation, would be a man of 
very poor ability, and very poor and halting concep- 
tions of God and his greatness; And this state- 
ment may well apply to the so-called fall and 
redemption. It is all utterly worthless and feeble, 
and only fit for acceptance by a people who were in 
a state far less advanced than the minds of the nine- 
teenth century. I do not say that the Bible is 
without use in the world, or that it ought to be 
destroyed, because there are many excellent pre- 
cepts found therein, and in the New Testament we 
have about the only account, and probably the best 
one, of that great religious teacher of Nazareth, 
although that, too, is undoubtedly mingled with fic- 
tions of the age and of the writers. The Old Tes- 
tament contains the things most objectionable as a 
rule ; but even that I would not have destroyed, or 
a single word of it lost, as I think it has done about 
all the harm it ever can do, except to keep those 
who still believe it to be the word of God in dark- 
ness for a few generations more. What I want to 
see destroj^ed (and it is being done slowly but 
surely, as the grinding of the proverbial mills of 
the gods) is the belief that such a collection is the 
word of God. That belief has caused, I fervently 
believe, an almost incalculable amount of sin and 
suffering, and retarded the development of truth 
and human progress. "Oh, but," says someone, 
*' how foolish to make such a statement ; are not the 
countries where the people have the strongest belief 
and most perfect faith in the Bible the farthest ad- 
vanced in civilization, and do they not stand on the 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 143 

pinnacle of light whose rays are shed abroad through- 
out the world?" And I reply, Your statement is 
not unqualifiedly true, but if it were, the simple fact 
that you are farther out of darkness than the others, 
only proves that you are ahead of the rest ; it does 
not prove that you have reached the end of all pos- 
sible improvement. It may prove that your ideas 
have less of the darkness and superstition than 
those of another, but it does not prove that you are 
in the full orb of the great search-light of perfec- 
tion. It may prove that you have ideas farther 
advanced than a Turk. It may prove that your con- 
ceptions of God and godlines;^ are superior to the 
conceptions of a Malay or a Hottentot, but it does 
not prove that you have reached the stage at which 
no further eflfort is needed, at which no added light 
can be shed upon your mind, and no higher and 
more perfect ideal can be conceived ; and he who 
thinks so is struck already with the blight and mil- 
dew of conceit and bigotry, and has announced 
himself as ready to stay like an oyster sticking in 
the mud — singing his own glory forever more. Be- 
cause we can find men who are more foolish than 
we are, is a very poor argument that we are all-wise. 
Some portions of the early writings are very likely 
traditions from the day of Moses, and I have an 
idea that some of the precepts — some of the com- 
mands — were written by Moses himself, although 
the first five books contain practically no evidence 
that Moses wrote them, or any part of them, and 
the theory that he did write them has nothing but 
tradition for its sui3port, and that is indeed very 



144 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

doubtful autliorit}^ The principal ideas, the idea 
of God, the devil, heaven, and hell, were borrowed 
from the Egyptians during the sojourn of the Israel- 
ites in Egypt. Or rather, let us say that the whole 
system was a corruption of the religions of Persia 
and Egj^pt, which came to tlie Hebrew race through 
Moses (who, the Bible says, was learned in the wis- 
dom of the Egyptians). Just how much was written 
by Moses will never be kno\\-n, but it seems to me 
that he wrote but little, and that a great amount of 
oral teaching was handed down through the many 
3'ears between the days of Moses and the date at 
which Ezra came upon the scene, with accumulations 
such as would naturally become attached during this 
process of handing down a long story from one gen- 
eration to another in an age of darkness and cor- 
ruption, to be'finally reduced to writing by someone, 
doubtless Ezra, who, the Bible says, was a ready 
scribe in the law of Moses. 

To my mind there is a great deal implied in that 
statement that Ezra was ''a readj" scribe in the law 
of Moses." Had they said he was a great teacher 
in the law of Moses, it would have been a little 
more in their favor (or rather in favor of those Avho 
think Moses was the writer). Had they said that 
Ezra was learned in the law of Moses, it would have 
given a very different meaning, but to say that he 
was a ready writer in the law of Moses is a direct 
implication that he wrote a great deal of what loe 
call the laiv of 3Ioses, and this view I believe to be 
correct. 

There was a truditiou among the ancient Jews 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE ? 145 

that all the books of the law were, at one time, de- 
stroyed by the Chaldeans, who overran the country, 
and that Ezra wrote them all out from memory. While 
my faith in tradition is very limited, perhaps those 
who do pin faith to tradition will be willing to ac- 
cept this as a fact, seeing it comes from the same 
source as all other biblical tradition. At any rate, 
they will join with me in thinking it an indication 
that the Jews of Ezra's day, and so on, even after 
the Christian era, attributed the writing of the Pen- 
tateuch, as well as some other books, in the form in 
which they then existed, to Ezra the scribe. It 
really seems needless to take up the question of 
Moses being the author of the first five (or six) 
books of the Bible in detail, as the evidence against 
that view is so abundant that time spent in argu- 
ment seems wasted. If Moses was a meek man and 
wrote these books, he would never have written : 
" Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the 
men which were upon the face of the earth " (Num. 
xii, 3) ; neither would he have written the words in 
Deuteronomy xxxiv : "And there arose not a prophet 
since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord 
knew face to face," because this sentence was evi- 
dently written long after the day of Moses. Neither 
would he have written the account of his own death 
and burial, found in this same chapter, although 
even this is a contradiction, as it says that the Lord 
buried Moses " in a valley in the land of Moab, over 
against Bethpeor, but no man knoweth of his sepul- 
chre unto this day." Will some man who is both 
sensible and consistent tell me how Moses could 



146 KELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

have written this, and also how it can be that they 
know that he was buried in that valley over against 
Bethpeor, and still *' no man knoweth of his sepul- 
chre unto this day?" For a man to reply that they 
knew he was buried in that valley and over against 
that place, but the exact spot of his grave or tomb 
was not known, would be both sophistical and silly, 
for the eye that saw him buried, and that knew he 
was buried in that particular place, would have seen 
or known of the place of sepulchre, else he would 
have had no actual knowledge that he was ever 
buried at all. There is still left one claini for these 
sophists to make, namely, to abandon the theory that 
Moses wrote this, but that Ezra was inspired to do 
it and that, by means of this inspiration, it was 
made known to him that God did bury Moses in 
that valley over against Bethpeor, but that he did 
not make known to him the exact spot of interment. 
If, in this age of the world, there be found men who 
are willing to rest their faith of life and immortality 
upon such a flimsy basis, a basis upon which, re- 
garding any common matter, even of small moment, 
they would not, to-day, give a shadow of credence, 
they are indeed wedded to their idols and welcome 
to their thoughts. Moreover, the book says : "No 
man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day," which, 
if true, is a positive denial of all sophistries as to 
any knowledge of the matter whatever. 

Let us now see if we can find anything to bear out 
my statement that Moses got the knowledge, attrib- 
uted to him, from E^trypt- One thing we will set 
down as established at the start. Let us fix one 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 147 

point upon which all who believe the Bible will 
agree, namely, that the law was first given to the 
Israelites by Moses after he came down from the 
mount in the wilderness ; after the children of 
Israel had left the Egyptians and commenced their 
wanderings. And also that this took place 1491 B. c, 
and less than three months after they abandoned 
Egypt, according to Bible chronology. Let us then 
turn to the people from among whom the Israelites 
fled and see what we find. We shall, I think, find 
that they borrowed of the Egyptians other things 
besides ''jewels of silver and jewels of gold," 
namely, some of their thoughts, customs, and ideas. 
Moses, Avho was brought up as an Egyptian and had 
become acquainted w^th '' the wisdom of the Egyp- 
tians," imparted it to his fellow Israelites in a some- 
what changed form. From ''Ten Great Religions," 
by James Freeman Clark, I take the following quo- 
tations regarding Zoroaster and the Persian relig- 
ion, as well as my many quotations relating to Egypt. 
" But who was Zoroaster, and what do we know, of 
him ? He is mentioned by Plato about four hun- 
dred years before Christ. In speaking of the educa- 
tion of a Persian prince, he says that one teacher 
instructs him in the magic of Zoroaster, the son (or 
priest) of Ormazd (or Ormazes), in which is compre- 
hended all the worship of the gods. The Magi 
think they do a meritorious act when they kill ants, 
snakes, reptiles." Plutarch's account of Zoroaster 
and liis precepts is very remarkable. It is as fol- 
lows : ** Some believe that there are two Gods, as it 
were two rival workmen ; the one whereof they 



148 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

make to be the maker of good things, and the other 
bad. And some call the better of these God, and 
the other Daemon ; as doth Zoroastres, the Magi, 
whom they report to be five thousand years older 
than the Trojan times. This Zoroastres therefore 
called one of these Oromazes, and the other Ari- 
manus ; and affirmed, moreover, that the one of them 
did, of anything sensible, the most resemble light, 
and the other darkness and ignorance ; but that 
Mithras was in the middle betwixt them. For this 
cause the Persians called Mithras the mediator. 
And they telL us that he first taught mankind to 
make vows and offerings of thanksgiving to the one, 
and to offer everlasting and feral sacrifice to the 
other." (I do not quote in full.) " These men, more- 
over, tell us a great many romantic things about 
these gods, whereof these are some : They say that 
Oromazes, springing from purest light, and Ari- 
manus, on the other hand, from pitchy darkness, 
these two are, therefore, at war with one another. 
And that Oromazes made six gods whereof the first 
is the author of benevolence, the second of truth, 
the third of justice, and the rest, one of wisdom, one 
of wealth, and a third of that pleasure which ac- 
crues from good actions ; and that Arimanus like- 
wise made the like number of contrary operations 
to confront them. After this, Oromazes, having first 
trebled his own magnitude, mounted up aloft, so far 
above the sun as the sun itself above the earth, and 
so bespangled the heavens with stars. But one star 
(called Sirius, or the dog) he set as a kind of sen- 
tinel, or scout, before all the rest. And after he 
made four-aud-twenty gods more, he placed them all 



WHAT IS . THE BIBLE ? 149 

in an eggshell. But those that were made by Ari- 
manus (being themselves also of the like number), 
breaking a hole in this beauteous and glazed egg- 
shell, bad things came by this means to be inter- 
mixed with good. But the fatal time is now 
approaching in which Arimanus, who, by means of 
this, brings plagues and famines upon the earthy 
must, of necessity, be himself utterly extinguished 
and destroyed ; at which time the earth, being made 
plain and level, there will be one life, and one so- 
ciety of mankind, made all happy, and one speech. 
But Theopompus saitli that, according to the opin- 
ion of the Magi, each of these gods subdues, and 
is subdued by turns, for the space of three thou- 
sand years apiece, and that for three thousand 
years more they quarrel and fight and destroy each 
other's works ; but at last Pluto shall fail, and man- 
kind shall be happy, and neither need food nor 
yield a shadow. And that the god who projects 
these things doth, for some time, take his repose 
and rest ; but yet this time is not so much to 
him, although it seems so to man whose sleep is 
short. Such, then, is the mythology of the Magi. 
We shall see presently how nearly this account cor- 
responds with the religion of the Parsis, as it was 
developed out of the primitive doctrine of Zoroaster." 
Continuing, Clark tells us that until the middle of 
the last century there was but little known regard- 
ing Zoroaster or his teachings. Not until 1775, when 
a Frenchman by the name of Auquetil du Perron 
made a journey through Hindostan and India, en- 
during great hardships, learning the Zend language, 
and finallv returning home with the "Zend Avesta" 



150 RELIGION ANt) THE BIBLE. 

(the sacred books of the Zoroastrian religion), hav- 
ing made a collection of one hundred and eighty 
valuable manuscripts, did the world at large have 
any adequate knowledge of the ancient religion of 
the Persians ? The genuineness of these books is 
beyond question. The date at which the Zend 
Avesta was written, or the time at which Zoroaster 
lived, is a matter of disagreement. Among the 
opinions quoted by Clark as to the date of Zoroas- 
ter, I take the following : "Bunson, indeed, sug- 
gested that the date of Zoroaster, as fixed by Aris- 
totle, cannot be said to be very irrational. He and 
Eudoxus, according to Pliny, place him six thou- 
sand years before the death of Plato ; Hermippus, 
five thousand years before the Trojan war, or about 
6300 B. 0. Spiegel, in one of his latest works, con- 
siders Zoroaster as a neighbor and contemporary of 
Abraham. Eawlinson merely remarks that Berosus 
places him anterior to 2234 b. c." Others place him 
from 1200 to 1300 B. c. For myself, I know nothing 
about which one is right, but I strongly suspect 
that those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible 
would be loath to admit that there was a kingdom 
in Persia where men were far advanced in civiliza- 
tion before the date at which Genesis says man was 
first created ; although there seems to be no doubt 
that such is the fact. Let us turn again to Clark 
and quote from him and the authors whom he cites 
as to Zoroaster and his teachings. "Zoroaster bases 
his law on the eternal distinction between right and 
wroiiir. Zoroaster cognizes all morality as having 
its root wiiliiiK in the eternal distinction between 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 151 

right and wrong motive ; therefore, in God. The 
method of salvation, therefore, according to Zoroas- 
ter, is that of an eternal battle for good against evil. 
Zoroaster was one of those who was oppressed with 
the sight of evih But it was not outward evil which 
most tormented him, but spiritual evil, evil having 
its origin in a depraved heart and a will turned 
away from goodness. His meditations led him to 
the conviction that all the woe of the world had its 
root in sin, and that the origin of sin was to be 
found in the demoniac world." 

Let us now quote some of the translations of the 
Avesta, which seem to us like Psalms : ** Good is 
the thought, good the speech, good the work of the 
pure Zarathustra (Zoroaster). I desire by my 
prayer with uplifted hands this joy, the pure works 
of the Holy Spirit, Mazda, ... a disposition to 
perform good actions . . . and pure gifts for 
both worlds, the bodily and the spiritual. I have 
trusted my soul to heaven . . . and I will teach 
what is pure as long as I can. I keep forever purity 
and good-mindedness. Teach thou me, Ahura- 
Mazda (Ormazd), out of thyself, from heaven, by 
thy mouth, whereby the world first arose. Thee 
have I thought, O Mazda, as the first to praise with 
the soul, . . . active creator, . . . Lord of the 
worlds . . . Lord of good things, . . . the 
first fashioner, . . . who made the pure crea- 
tion, . . . who upholds the best soul with his 
understanding. I praise Ahura-Mazda, who has 
created the cattle, created the water, and good trees, 
the splendor of light, the earth, and all good. We 



152 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

honor the good spirit, the good kingdom, the good 
law — all that is good. Now, give ear to me, and 
hear! The Wise Ones Lave created all. Evil doc- 
trine shall not again destroy the world. In the 
name of God, the giver, forgiver, rich in love, praise 
be the name of Ormazd, the God with the name, 
who always was, always is, and always will be the 
heavenly amongst the heavenly, with the name ; 
from whom alone is derived rule ; offering and 
praise to that Lord, the completer of good works, 
who made men greater than all earthly beings, and 
through the gift of speech created them to rule the 
creatures, as warriors against the Dsevas. Praise 
the omniscience of God, who hath sent through the 
holy Zarathustra, peace for the creatures, the wis- 
dom of the law, the enlightening derived from the 
heavenly understanding, and heard with the ears ; 
wisdom and guidance for all beings who are, were, 
and will be (and), the wisdom which effects freedom 
from hell of the soul at the bridge and leads it over 
to that paradise, the brilliant, sweet-smelling of the 
pure." Does anyone wonder that a man having 
knowledge of these precepts and teachings should 
be able to write the Mosaic account of the creation 
and to give the law to the Jews ? 

Clark also gives pages of repentance where the 
penitent repents of almost every sin of which the 
mind of man can conceive, which would show a 
state of conscience truly remarkable among almost 
any people in any age of the world, among which 
are pride, haughtiness, covetousness, slandering the 
dead, anger, envy, shamelessness, sloth, despising 



7^ ■ l^- 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 153 

others, idol worship, robbery, witchcraft, sins 
against father, mother, sister, brother, wife, child, 
etc. The penitent goes on to say that he is in 
agreement with all good deeds, and with all sins he 
is not in agreement ; that he is contented with the 
tormenting and chastisements of the mighty of the 
law. We find two great powers represented, 
Ormazd and Ariman. But, although Ariman had 
made many things, he had nothing to oppose to the 
original man created by Ormazd, and so he resolved 
to kill him. The man and the woman, this book 
tells us, were originally innocent and made for 
heaven, and worshiped Ormazd as their creator. 
But Ariman tempted them. They drank milk from 
a goat and so injured themselves. Then Ariman 
brought them fruit ; they ate it, and lost a hundred 
parts of their happiness, so that only one remained. 
The woman was the first to sacrifice to the Daevas. 
After fifty years they had two children, and died a 
hundred years old. For their sins, they remained 
in hell until the resurrection. The human race, 
which had thus become mortal and miserable by the 
sin of its first parents, assumed, nevertheless, a 
highly interesting position. The. man stands in 
the middle, between the two worlds of light and 
darkness, left to his own free will. As a creature of 
Ormazd, he can and ought to honor him, and assist 
him in the war of evil ; but Ariman and his Daevas 
surround him night and day, and seek to mislead 
him in order to increase thereby the power of dark- 
ness. The substance of the law is the command : 
" Think purely, speak purely, act purely. All that 



154 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

comes from Ormazd is pure, from Ariman impure/' 
"We will close this class of quotations with a few 
lines from the account of the final destiny of man. 
'' But all the sinners shall be borne along by the 
stream into the abyss of Duzahk. Here they will 
burn three days and three nights ; then, being puri- 
fied, they will evoke Ormazd, and be received into 
heaven. Afterward Ariman and all in the Duzahk 
shall be purified by this fire, all evil be consumed, 
and all darkness banished. From the extinct fire 
there will come a more beautiful earth, destined to 
be eternal." Is this the book of Revelations, or is 
it something written hundreds, aye, thousands of 
years before the writer of the book of Revelations 
was born, or is it both ? Were I to quote no fur- 
ther in regard to these matters I might well say 
that enough had been introduced to show that not 
only the foundation of the Old Testament came 
from these teachings, but the teachings of the New 
Testament as welL 

Clark says of it ; *' Of this system we will say, in 
conclusion, that in some respects it comes nearer to 
Christianity than any other. Moreover, though 
long dead, like the great nation of which it was the 
inspiration and life, its influence remains, and has 
permeated both Judaism and Christianity." **But," 
says someone, '' although you have shown that un- 
doubtedly the Persians held ideas of God, Satan, the 
creation, sin, salvation, and repentance, you fail to 
connect Moses with those ideas, and your argument 
is ridiculous, as Moses was born in Egypt, and not 
in Persia." Well, let us see about this, and see if it 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 155 

is foolish. These ideas existed in Persia long before 
the day of Moses. Of this there is no doubt. 
Therefore Moses was not the originator of these 
ideas. 

Now, if they Lad been long taught in Persia, do 
you suppose that as highly-civilized and learned 
people as the Egyptians, had no knowledge of these 
things ? Persia and Egypt both undoubtedly have 
been peopled much longer than the Jews have 
any knowledge of human existence. The great 
trouble with us is that we have somehow inherited 
the idea that nobody but a Jew can tell the truth. 
When other people can show evidence of existence, 
religion, and civilization before the time fixed by 
Jewish records for such things, we say. No, that 
can't be ; Moses didn't know anything about it, 
therefore it isn't so. If we would swap that turn 
of mind for a willingness to admit the light from all 
quarters, we might learn something of value to us 
all. One thing is certain, Moses did not teach those 
things to the Persians, therefore is it not possible 
that in some way the Persians did teach them to 
him ? Thev did not come from Moses to Persia. Is 
it not presumable, then, that they came from Persia 
to Moses ? Of the Egyptians, the few quotations that 
I shall give will be only the merest glimpse of the 
many things we ought all to know regarding them. 
"We have," says Clark, "wonderfully preserved 
over an interval of forty-five centuries the daily 
habits, the opinions, and the religious faith of that 
ancient time. It is not astonishing to find houses 
with doors and windows, with verandas, with barns 



156 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

for grain, vineyards, gardens, fruit-trees, etc.; 
houses furnished with a great variety of chairs, 
tables, ottomans, carpets, couches, as elegant and 
elaborate as any used now. There are men and 
women playing upon harps, upon flutes, pipes, 
cymbals, trumpets, drums, guitars, and tambour- 
ines. Glass was, till recently, believed to be a 
modern invention, unknown to the ancients, but 
we find it commonly used as early as the age 
of. Osertasen I., more than three thousand eight 
hundred years ago, and we have pictures of glass- 
blowing, and of glass bottles, as far back as the 
fourth djnasty. The best Venetian glass-workers are 
unable to rival some of the old Egyptian work ; the 
Egyptians also imitated successfully the colors of 
precious stones, and could even make statues thir- 
teen feet high, closely resembling an emerald. They 
could cut glass at the most remote periods. They 
were able to spin and weave, and color cloth ; and 
were acquainted with the use of mordants, the won- 
der of modern calico-printing. Tlie Egyptians 
tanned leather and made shoes ; and the shoe- 
makers, on their benches, are represented working 
exactly like ours. Tn the tombs are found vases of 
ointment, mirrors, combs, needles. Doctors and 
drugs were not unknown to them ; and the passport 
system is no modern invention, for their deeds contain 
careful descriptions of the person exactly in the 
style with which European travelers are familiar. 
M. Eenan describes tombs visited by himself, which 
he considers to be the oldest known, and which he 
regards as being 4000 B. c. 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 157 

" Egyptians," says Wilkinson, " were, unquestion- 
ably, the most pious nation of all antiquity. The 
oldest monuments show their belief in a future life." 
Of their feasts I will mention but two. The feast 
of the death of Osiris (Osiris was the Egyptian 
god who was killed, and who returned to life to be 
the king and judge of the dead) ; and the feast of his 
resurrection (when people called out, '' We have 
found him ! Good luck "). 

The priests in Egypt were of various grades, as 
the chief priests, or pontiffs, prophets, judges, 
scribes, etc. Priests were exempt from taxes, and 
were provided for out of the public stores. They 
superintended sacrifices, jDrocessions, funerals, and 
were initiated into the greater and lesser mysteries. 
Flesh of swine was particularly forbidden. A great 
purification took place before their fasts. *' Oxen 
and animals were sacrificed." "Incense was offered 
to all the gods in censers." "Processions were 
usual with the Egyptians ; in one shrines, were car- 
ried on the shoulders by long staves passed through 
rings. In others, the statues of the gods were car- 
ried, and arks, like those of the Jews, overshadowed 
by the wings of the goddess of truth spread above 
the sacred beetle." Does the reader see anything 
thus far that looks as though the Jews got any of 
their religious customs and ideas from Egypt ? " The 
prophets were the most highly honored of the 
priestly order. Until Swedenborg, no religion has 
ever taught an immortality as distinct in its outline 
and as solid in its substance as that of the Egyptians.- 
The Greek and Boman hereafter was shadowy and 



158 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

vague ; that of Buddhism remote, and the Hebrew 
beyond was wholly eclipsed and overdone by the 
sense of a divine presence and power immanent in 
space and time. To the Egyptian, this life was but 
the first step, and a very short one, of an immense 
career." "Many of the virtues, which we are apt 
to suppose a monopoly of Christian culture, appear 
as the ideal of these old Egyptians. Brugsch says 
a thousand voices from the tombs of Egypt declare 
this." "A king's tomb at Thebes gives us, in a few 
words, the religious creed of a Pharoah : I lived in 
truth and fed my soul with justice. What I did to 
man was done in peace, and how I loved God, God 
and my heart well know. I have given bread to the 
hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, 
and a shelter to the stranger. I honored the Gods 
with sacrifices, and the dead with offerings." 

Speaking of the age of the Egyptian empire, Clark 
says: "The Egyptian priests told Herodotus that 
there were three hundred and thirty-one kings, from 
Menes to Moeris, whose names they read out of a 
book. After him came eleven others, of whom 
Sethos was the last. From Osiris to Amasis they 
counted fifteen thousand years, though Herodotus 
did not believe this statement. If the three hun- 
dred and forty-two kings really existed it would 
make Menes come 9150 b. c." Diodorus is quoted 
as saying that Menes lived about four thousand 
seven hundred years before his time." Manetho (an 
Egyptian historian) tells us that from Menes there 
were thirty dynasties- who reigned five thousand 
three hundred and sixty-six years. But he gives a 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 159 

list of four hnndred and seventy-two kings in these 
dynasties to the time of Oambyses. The main 
chronological points, however, are by no means as 
yet fixed. 

Thus the beginning of the first dynasty is placed 
by Bockh at 5702 B. C^ by Jjepsius 3892 b. c, by 
Bunsen 3623 b. c, by Brugsch 4455 b. c, by Lauth 
4157 B. c, by Duncker 3233 b. c. "Monuments ex- 
tending through thirty-five centuries attest an age 
preceding all written history. These monuments, 
so far as deciphered by modern Egyptologists, have 
confirmed the accuracy of the lists of kings which 
have come to us from Manetho. We have no monu- 
ment anterior to the fourth dynasty, but at that time 
we find the theocracy fully organized. The general 
accuracy of Manetho's list has been demonstrated 
by the latest discoveries of M. Mariette, and ren- 
dered doubtful the idea of any of the dynasties 
being contemporaneous." Under the head of " In- 
fluence of Egypt on Judaism and Christianity," 
Clark, among other things, says : " How much of 
the doctrine and ritual of Egypt were imported into 
Judaism by Moses is a question by no means easy 
to settle. • • • The cherubim among the Jews 
may resemble the Egyptian sphinx, the priests' dress 
in both are of white linen; the Urim and Thum- 
mim, symbolic jewels of the priests, are in both; a 
quasi hereditary priesthood is in each, and both 
have a temple worship. But here the parallels 
cease. Moses left behind Egyptian theology, and 
took only some hints for his ritual from the Nile. 
There may, perhaps, be a single exception to this 



160 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

statement. According to Brugsch and other writers 
the papyrus, buried with the mummy, contained the 
doctrine of the divine unity. The name of God was 
not given, but instead the words Nuk pu Nuk, *I 
am the I am,' corresponding to the name given in 
Exodus iii, 14, Jahveh (in a eorrupt form, Jehovah). 
This name, Jahveh, has the same meaning with the 
Egyptian Nuk pu Nuk (I am the I am). At least, 
so say, Egj^ptologists. If this is so, the coincidence 
is certainly very striking." I should indeed say as 
much, should not you ? 

Any man who is not wedded to his idols, who is 
willing to believe evidence, cannot fail to see the 
origin of at least the better part of the Mosaic re- 
ligion in the religion of the Persians and Egyptians. 
Clark further says : " That some of the ritualism, to 
which the Jews were accustomed in Egypt, should 
have been imported into their new ceremonial, is 
quite in accordance with human nature. Christian- 
ity, also, has taken up many of the customs of hea- 
thenism. The rite of circumcision was probably 
adopted by the Jews from the Egyptians, who re- 
ceived it from the natives of Africa. In Egypt it 
existed far earlier than the days of Abraham, as ap- 
pears by ancient mummies. Herodotus tells us that 
this custom existed from the earliest times among 
the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and was adopted 
from them by the Syrians of Palestine." ** The 
Egyptians had, in their temples, a special interior 
sanctuary, more holy than the rest. So the Jews 
had their holy of holies into which only the high- 
priest went, separated by a veil from the other parts 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 161 

of the temple. Jews were commanded on the Day 
of Atonement to provide a scapegoat, to carry away 
the sins of the people (Lev. xvi, 21, 22), and it was said 
that the goat shall bear upon him all their iniqui- 
ties unto a land not inhabited. So among the 
Egyptians, whenever a victim was offered, a prayer 
was repeated over its head that if any calamity 
were about to befall either the sacrifice or the land 
of Egypt, it might be averted on this head. Such 
facts as these make it highly probable that Moses 
allowed in his ritual many ceremonies borrowed 
from Egyptian worship." How very loth to admit 
evidence seems the spirit that says that *' he alloived 
in his ritual many ceremonies borrotved from the 
Egyptians.'' Allowed indeed ! How came they there 
if Moses simply alloived them there? Why seek to 
evade so plain a fact and one so much admitted? 
Why not plainly state what you really see, and 
say : Moses borrowed these things and used them, 
put them in his teaching, placed them in his law, 
made them stones in the temple that he builded, 
made them part of the teachings of the Bible; 
that he received these things not direct from God, 
but got them from the Egyptians? I do not pre- 
tend that it is God that has revealed to me these 
things w^hich I have been quoting ; I give the credit 
all to James Freeman Clark, and he in turn gives 
credit to those from whom he quotes. Why not 
demand the same of Moses, and not take the 
word of nobody know^s who, written, nobody 
knows when, after you have proven that the 
pretender was not the author and did not ob- 



162 I^ELIGlON AND l^Hfi BIBLE. 

tain his information from tlie source assumed ? 
There is something in my nature that makes me 
want to call a spade a spade, and not ahem and say : 
It really looks a little like a spade ; and very likely 
someone may have allowed it to be used as such. 
But let me quote still further from Clark : " That 
Egyptian Christianity [notice this, please, ' Egyp- 
tian Christianity '] had a great influence on the de- 
velopment of the S3^stem of Christian doctrine is 
not improbable. . . . Christianity conquered 
Egypt, but was itself deeply tinged with the faith 
of the conquered. Many customs found in Christen- 
dom may be traced back to Egypt. The Egyptian 
at his marriage put a gold ring on his wife's finger 
as a token that he intrusted her with all his prop- 
erty, just as in the Church of England service the 
bridegroom does the same, saying, With all my 
worldly goods, I thee endow. The feast of candles 
at Sais is still marked in the Christian calendar as 
Candlemas Day. The Catholic priest shaves his 
head as the Egyptian priest did before him. The 
Episcopal minister's linen surplice for reading 
the Liturgy is taken from the dress of obligation, 
made of linen, worn by the priest in Egypt. Two 
thousand j^ears before the pope assumed to hokl the 
keys there was an Egyptian priest at Thebes with the 
title of * keeper of the two doors of heaven.' " Clark 
also gives four doctrines common to church ortho- 
doxy and Egyptian mythology, which he takes from 
Samuel Sharpe : 1. That the creation and govern- 
ment of the world is not the work of one simple 
and undivided being, but of one God made up of 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 163 

several persons. This is the doctrine of plural 
Hnity ; 2. That salvation cannot be expected from 
tlie justice or mercy of the Supreme Judge unless 
an atoning sacrifice is made to him by a divine be- 
ing ; 3. That among the .persons who compose the 
godhead one, though a god, could yet suflfer pain and 
be put to death ; 4 That a god or man, or a being 
half god and half man, once lived on earth, born of 
an earthly mother, but without an earthly father. 
The death of Osiris, the supreme god of all Egypt, 
was a central fact in this mythology. He was killed 
by Typhon, the Egyptian Satan, and after the frag- 
ments of his body had been collected by the sad 
Isis, he returned to life as king of the dead 
and their judge. From this same book we learn 
that the doctrine of the trinity and also of the 
atonement began to take shape in the hands of the 
Christian theologians of Egypt. " Ah, thou old 
land of Egypt, how little have we known of the 
things that came forth from thee ! We who have 
taken tlie words of an enemy who maligned all na- 
tions but its own, are now beginning to learn the 
falsity of the tales that were told us. The opinions 
that all Christendom has accepted regarding every 
nation under heaven have been gauged by the state- 
ments of the Hebrews who wrote the Old Testa- 
ment. One thing let me call attention to here, and 
that is the attitude of Cyrus, the Persian, toward 
the Jews after he conquered Babylon, where the 
Jews were in captivity. The Persians recognized 
the Jews as monotheists like themselves, and not 
worshipers of idols. They recognized in these peo- 



^ 



164 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

pie wlio worshiped an individual and invisible 
Deity a brother who worshiped the same power, 
though under a different name, and so the worshiper 
of Ormazd said to the worshipers of Jehovah, 
'' Who is there among you of all his people? his God 
be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which 
is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God 
of Israel (he is the God), which is in Jerusalem " 
(Ezra i, 3). There seems to be a connection of ideas 
here worthy of note, although I admit that it would 
be in no wise strange for a nation who had just 
made a conquest to have something of a friendly 
feeling for those whom they found enslaved by 
those with whom they had just been at war, but the 
testimony {'' he is the God "), if genuine, does not 
admit of this as a reason tor Cyrus's action, but 
shows it to be on account of a recognition of a com- 
mon principle in religion. Baal, whose worship is 
often mentioned in the Old Testament, was not of 
the gods of Egypt, but was anti-Egyptian, and was 
doubtless worshiped b}^ tlie Jews or those who were 
akin to them, rather than the Egyptians. "The 
birth of Moses," says Clark, ''fell under tlie reign 
of Rameses II. The Exodus was under that of his 
successor, Memphis. This king had fallen on evil 
times ; his power was much inferior to that of his 
great predecessor, and he even condescended to 
propitiate the anti Egyptian element by worshiping 
its gods. He has left his inscription on the monu- 
ments with the title 'Worshiper of Sutecli Baal in 
Tanis.' " It is now claimed that the shepherd kings 
overran a part of Egypt previous to Joseph's ac- 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 165 

quaintance with that land, and that it was among 
those that the Israelites found their welcome (per- 
haps on account of some natural tie of blood or 
worship), and that the king "who knew not Joseph," 
of whom mention is made in Exodus (chap, i), wh>s 
the Egj^ptian king who had driven these shepherds 
from the land. That an inclination to worship 
other than the invisible Jehevah was present with 
the Jews, and probably one which had long been 
with them, is evident by their proceeding to make 
the golden calf while Moses was on the mount pre- . 
paring the law, as well as the oft-recurring tendency 
to similar things for a long time after. We find in 
Judges ii an account given of their following after 
other gods and worshiping Baal, only fort3^-five 
years after they entered the land of Canaan after 
their coming out of Egpt. It seems rather strange 
to me, if those people had what they believed to be 
the law of God, given them through Moses, that in 
that short space of time they should turn their 
backs upon it and return to what seems to have 
been for them a more natural worship. Moreover, 
this inclination seems to be oft-recurring, as anyone 
who reads the Bible will readily see. It seems 
likely that many things that Moses taught were 
not in accord with the Hebrew ideas, and that there 
resulted a sort of a conflict of ideas which afterward 
caused divisions among the Israelites. Moses' 
teachings themselves were likely of that stamp, be- 
ing the Persian and Egyptian ideas which came to \ 
him by education, mingled with the leanings 
prompted by the blood of the Hebrew. The com- 



166 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

mands, *' Thou slialt not kill" and "Thou slialt not 
commit adultery," are in striking contrast to the 
order to slaughter the woman and boy children of 
the Midianites, and the division of the young girls 
am^ong a debased and brutal soldiery. As for the 
evidence of Moses' having written the books of the 
law as we now have them, I have already stated my 
opinion, but will here add to what has already been 
said by quoting from a *' Summary of the Intervals 
between the Old and New Testaments," which I 
find in the '' Helps to Study " in the back of the 
Oxford Bible to which I have referred in another 
place. " It was the Jewish theory that the law was 
given in a two-fold form, viz., the written and the 
oral ; the former consisting of brief official enact- 
ments, the latter entering into more copious details. 
With the former code, immutably formalized by 
God, they said the latter was orally taught to 
Moses on Mount Sinai by the same divine au- 
thor, as the authoritative interpretation thereof, 
with the command to commit the one to writing, but 
to transmit the other only by word of mouth. This 
oral law was repeated by Moses to Joshua, who 
handed it on to the elders who succeeded him,. and 
they to the prophets, who in turn passed it from 
one to another till it reached Jeremiah, who, 
through tlie medium of Baruch, conveyed it to 
Ezra, and he to the Great Synagogue, which Nehe- 
miah also supplied with a librar}^ of all the sacred 
/books he could collect. This body of elders lasted 
one hundred and fifty years, when it expired in its 
last survivor^ the high priest Simon the Just, 291 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 167 

B. d. AltliGUgli the Yery existence of this sjmagogue 
is said to be wholly a tradition, and baseless at that, 
as neither the scriptures nor the Hebrew authors of 
that day make any mention of such a tribunal, 
anyone who can belieye that books which came into 
existence in such a manner as that, especially when 
they are found to contain that which is untrue, is 
the perfect and inerrant word of God, is indeed to 
be pitied ; and we are under equal obligation to 
them that we are to those who are physically blind. 
I am well aware that good men and good women be- 
lieye these things, but it is one of the mysteries of 
these natures of ours how they can do it. Men 
talk about Infidels, Liberals, etc., referring to those 
who belieye the Bible to be the work of men, but 
they are in a fair way to wake up some day and find 
the infidelity, as they call it, in the pulpit, and the 
Bible-belieyer in the pew. Ministers know more of 
this matter than they tell. I haye no doubt whateyer 
that there are thousands of men occupying pulpits 
to-day who, if they told all they know and what they 
think regarding this book called the Bible, would 
horrify their congregations and be classed with un- 
belieyers at once. But they proceed to hitch along 
and gloss oyer this, and patch up that, and talk 
about the letter and the spirit, the probable mean- 
ing and the new law, the new understanding, and the 
new orthodox3^ 

For myself I do not need to haye anyone proye to 
me that the best of the teachings of the Old Testa- 
ment existed long before Moses was born, and that 
there were kingdoms in both Egypt and Persia (and 



168 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

very likely in America) before the period assigned 
as the creation of man, in order to show me that 
these things did not come to man as inspired and 
perfect truths from an all-wise and all-powerful God. 
They contain Jthings which are assumed to be of 
God, and in accordance with his will, that are not 
only not godlike, but are not even humane — but are 
false and fiendish. Now, I do not suppose that 
anyone considers lying a very godlike occupation, 
and I suppose also that causing others to lie is just 
as bad ; nevertheless, if the Bible be true, it must 
be quite a godlike accomplishment. In 1 Kings xxii 
there is an account of the Lord causing a lying spirit 
to be in the mouths of about four hundred prophets, 
by the which king Ahab was induced to try to 
capture Ramoth from the Syrians, and thereby meet 
death in battle. *'And the Lord said. Who shall 
persuade Ahab that he may go up and fall at Ea- 
moth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and 
another said on that manner. And tliere came forth 
a spirit and stood before the Lord and said, I will 
persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Where- 
with? and he said, I will go forth, and be a lying 
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he 
said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also ; go 
forth and do so." Aside from this exhibition of 
lying there is also exhibited the idea, which is both 
strange and foolish, that the Lord needed to take 
council and accept the suggestion of a liar in order 
to carry out a desired end. How cliildish and sense- 
less is such a view of God. For an example of cre- 
dulity let me call attention to the account of the 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 169 

death of Abimelecli, recited in the latter part of the 
ninth chapter of Judges. The account goes on to 
state that the people fled up to the top of a strong 
tower, ''And Abimelech came unto the tower and 
fought against it, and went hard unto the door of 
the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman 
cast a piece of millstone upon Abimelech' s head, 
and all to break his skull. Then he called hastilv 
unto the young man, his armor-bearer, and said unto 
him. Draw thy sword ^,nd slay me that ipen say not 
of me, a woman slew him. And his young man 
thrust him through, and he died." See anything 
wrong about that? Just imagine a man having a 
piece of a millstone thrown upon his head from the 
top of a high tower, and very naturally break his 
skull, but instead of dying at once, or even being 
rendered insensible by such a calamit}^, he forthwith 
calls out for someone to kill him with a sword so 
that people shall not say he was killed by a woman. 
Well, I had rather have it said that I was killed by 
a woman than that I ever wrote such a statement 
as that for the truth. To me it seems very strange 
that Christians believe all that has been spoken by 
a gang of selfish and conceited Hebrew prophets, 
and even claim them to be the truths of God. Do 
you suppose I want a man to teach me about the 
goodness (or evilness) and power of God, when he 
does not know enough about him to realize that 
he cannot get away from him by running away 
into the next town? Yet that is the exhibition 
which we have of the prophet Jonah ; for when 
the Lord told him to go and warn Nineveh, we read 



170 RELICnON AND THE BIBLE. 

in Jonah i, 3 : ** But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tar- 
shish from the presence of the Lord, and went down 
to Joppa ; and he found a ship going to Tarshish, 
so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it to 
go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of 
the Lord." Thought he could get away from Jeho- 
vah by getting out of the kingdom of Israel ? In 
one sense this might be a good thing if it had been 
so, as a God with the attributes which would permit 
him to be ^ party to the deeds done in the name of 
the Jehovah of the Jews, ought always to have 
been confined to Israel and not spread abroad in 
the minds of men. 

One would suppose to hear me express myself that 
I literally hated a Jew, but I do not. I do however 
thoroughly despise some of the old Jewish conceits. 
Personally, I have not the least feeling of enmity 
toward a Hebrew. I am indignant when he is ill- 
used and oppressed, and would help him if I could. 

The Jews of to-day, in this country at least, are 
law-abiding and well-behaved. I do not think that 
the percentage of crime is one- tenth part as great 
among them in our cities as among the rest of their 
population. The evil to which they seem to be 
most inclined is having property burned which is 
well insured. My trouble is not with the Jew of to- 
day ; the Christian doesn't believe in Jiwi (though he 
is much more deserving than of old), but with the 
one of long ago. The very men and organizations 
that scorn and condemn the Hebrew of to-day place 
implicit confidence in all that his half-civilized an- 
cestor said and did. The ancient Jews are the most 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 171 

stupendous examples of national conceit that the 
world ever exhibited. To them, no one upon earth 
was worthy of notice but a Jew. They could murder, 
rob, or pillage other nations and it was accounted 
meritorious, and Jehovah was not only with them, 
but commanded them to do it, according to their 
account, and that shameless falsehood is believed 
to-day by members of churches who say they base 
their faith on the words of him who taught that you 
should harm no man, not even an enemy. I refer 
to the fiendish cruelty of the Jews which is usually 
found wherever j^ou find them powerful enough to 
carry out their desires. Read Numbers xxxi, and 
see where, if the book speaks the truth, the Lord 
told Moses to go and avenge Israel upon the Midi- 
anites, and you find that he sent twelve thousand 
men who, according to the statement, killed all the 
males, pillaged the country, and brought back what- 
ever was worth transporting, and also brought the 
women and children, the sparing of whom so angered 
Moses that he bade the soldiers do a deed which, 
though no uncommon occurrence, evidently, among 
the Israelites, was one of the most reprehensible 
and fiendish in the annals of crime. 

He commanded them to kill all the male children, 
and all the women that had known man, and keep 
the rest for themselves. And this good record of 
what is assumed to be the will of God tells us that 
the command was carried out ; and, according to 
this precious story, there were distributed among 
these scoundrels thirty-two thousaiid girls, the 
priests getting their share as usual. Those who 



172 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

think I am hard on those who believe the Bible, 
please contemplate this deed and see, if they have 
any hearts that feel, any eyes that see, any ears that 
hear, if they will ever again insult God, goodness, 
and their own purity of thought and conception of 
right and reason by upholding, or thinking, that God 
in any way could have aught to do with deeds like 
these, except to condemn and punish those who 
had so shamelessly connected his name therewith. 

There are men, aye, and women too, who uphold 
those deeds ; who attempt to justify the killing a§ 
a retribution of the Lord, and say that the girls 
were kept for servants or domestics. I ask those 
to read the scripture carefully, and then never to 
repeat the assertion if they are honest. Why does 
this book say the older females were killed? Be- 
cause '' these caused the children of Israel, through 
the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against 
the Lord in the matter of Teor, and there luasa plague 
among the congregation of the Lord " (trying to sneak 
out by lajdng it to the women as usual). And all 
the women, and half the men, I hope, blush when 
they read this, and feel as though it was not fit to 
put before the public. What \ not fit to put before 
the public, and yet the word of God? The word 
of God indeed ! those things may be valuable as 
showing what kind of a set the ancient Israelites 
were, but for present publication it seems to me 
like an item more fit for the "Police News" than 
for the "Word of God." God help the world 
when men and women are so blinded by the dark- 
ness of ancient superstition that they prefer to bo- 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 173 

lieve such slander, ratlier than question the author- 
it}^ of the man who wrote it. Now turn back and 
see what we have comiiig from this same Moses and, 
as the book says, from this same Lord, only a short 
time previous, and a command which should be a 
latr of God unto this same people. What do we find ? 
"Thou shalt not kill." "Thou shalt not commit 
adultery." And then our gaze reverts to Numbers 
xxxi, and we find this same God represented as com- 
manding the breaking of this very law by the whole- 
sale. 

Now, you who believe this biblical account of 
murder and rapine, do not throw down this book in 
disgust and call it a lie, and the author a devil, for 
neither one would be true, but look this matter 
over for your own good, and for the good of human- 
ity, and if you find I am wrong I will thank you if 
you will show me my error ; and if you find you 
have been holding a serpent to your bosom, you 
should indeed be grateful if I can help rid you of 
it. Shame upon those who say that the Midianites 
had sinned and given offense to God and for that 
reason he caused these things to be done to them. 
It is a falsehood ! It is not the act of a God, and 
he who w^orships a being that commits, or causes to 
be committed, deeds like unto those worships not a 
God but a demon. I know" the revolting with wdiich 
these words will be received. I know (or trust) 
that the most of those who hold those views of God 
are much better in their hearts (or souls) than they 
are in their heads, and would not intentionally 
recommend the commission of such deeds as those 



174 KELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

to-day, and so I ask again, Then why, in heaven's 
name, do they continue to slander God by thinking 
\ that he would ever be guilty of deeds so base ? I 
have seen the opinion of a learned woman who is 
prominent in the so-called Christian world, who 
justifies the killing of the male children of Midian 
by saying that "it was p. thousand times better that 
they should be cut ^flf in infancy, than grow up in 
rejection of God, and in the willful idolatry of the 
Midianites." May the children of future genera- 
tions be kept from the tender mercies of such as 
she ! She knows not what she says ; she does not 
realize the sentiment to which she gives utterance. 
Those words are but an echo from the inquisition, 
the thumbscrew, and the rack. They are but a new 
declaration of the justice and goodness, the mercy, 
and the helpfulness to God of the massacre of the 
Huguenots, and of the day of Saint Bartholomew. 
It is the old, old cry of the church of Rome who 
burned, tortured, and killed for the same purpose, 
sparing neither age nor sex. This woman (like all 
others who uphold such deeds) is hand and glove 
with the sentiment which caused all the fiendish 
deeds of the so-called Christian church in ages past, 
and both thoughts came from the same source. All 
Protestants hold up their hands in horror of the 
merciless cruelties of Rome, and unsparingly con- 
demn them ; but when the same spirit was mani- 
fested by men in the days of Moses, they stand up 
with shameless eff'rontery before God and attempt to 
justify them. From the belief that men, by doing 
such deeds as were done by Moses, were carrying 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 175 

out the will of Gocl, came all of the murders aud 
deeds of darkness which filled the world with terror 
for ages, and crucified anew the Christ of the world 
— the spirit of love and mercy that says : ** Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do." No 
one can quote Jesus of Galilee in support of the 
deeds of cruelty to which we have referred, and any 
man or woman, Protestant or Catholic, who upholds 
those deeds, denies Christ in so doing, and denies, 
also, all of the promptings of the spirit of all save 
— evil. May the time soon come when such things 
will no longer be taught as in harmony with the at- 
tributes of God. Again, I say, these people know 
not what they do. The man who spends his days in 
thoughtless cursing, does not offer offense to God 
like he who attributes to God those deeds of cruelty 
and crime. 

Not only does he most grievously slander his 
maker, but he helps implant in the minds of inno- 
cent youth the same base and distorted conception of 
the Father of all .good. Why not be honest with your 
intelligence and admit that these things were done by 
a rude, half-civilized, half-developed man, and that 
the prompting came not from God, but from his 
own evil heart, where they were born of the concep- 
tion of God which he held ? And then you will free 
your own mind of a similar conception and thereby 
do your part in freeing the world from that which 
has caused misery and woe uncounted and untold. 
Much trouble comes from people saying that the 
old belief is true and that the new one, which is a 
contradiction of the old, is true also, Some of the 



176 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

fruits of the spirit of God, according to the Old 
Testament, are very bad ones and quite contrary 
to those of the New. If the spirit of God is shown 
forth in the deeds recorded in Numbers, how can it 
be true that as Paul says (Gal. v, 22) : " The fruit 
of the spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, good- 
ness?" For my part I accept the latter, and utterly 
and unqualifiedly repudiate the former. One thing 
I wish to mention as showing the kind of imposi- 
tion of which the Bible is composed — namely ,^ the 
statement that '* they killed all the males " when 
they killed the five kings of Midian and brought 
back probably some sixty thousand to seventy-five 
thousand women and children (and this all done 
by twelve thousand men) ; for we read in Judges vi 
that the Midianites, some two hundred years after 
the events recorded in Numbers, overran Israel and 
pushed the Israelites so hard that they sought es- 
cape by making them dens and caves and strong- 
holds in the mountains, and also we find that David 
warred with the same people many years after. 

It is no use to seek escape by saying that it 
should not be translated " all the males," but " a 
great number," as that can hardly be counted hon- 
est, as it is plainly out of keeping with the tone of 
the account, which is evidently considered by trans- 
lators as correctly rendered, or ther would have 
been only too glad to have changed it if they could 
have done so honorabW. We find another some- 
what similar case in 1 Samuel xv in a command 
through Samuel from the Lord unto Saul to kill the 
Amalekites, " Now go and smite Amalek, and ut- 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 177 

'terly destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; 
but slay both man and women, infant and suckling, 
ox and sheep, camel and ass. And Saul smote the 
Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to 
Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took 
Agag, the king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly 
destroyed all the people with the edge of the 
sword." Then when Samuel learned that Agag was 
spared, he had him brought before him, whereupon 
this prophet of God (so called) hewed him to pieces. 
If this be a true account, surely the Amalekites 
were then exterminated. We find, however, that 
some twenty-three years later (according to the 
Bible chronology) David is fighting the Amalekites. 
Remarkable, isn't it ? What a peculiar mushroom 
quality the people whom the Israelites exterminated 
had of groxt-ing up again from nothing in a night ! 
Anyone who thinks that the fruits of the spirit are 
"peace, "mercy, gentleness, goodness," and that God 
is a God of love and not a fiend incarnate, will do 
well to read the tenth chapter of 1 Chronicles. We 
find there an account of a war between the Israel- 
ites and the Ammonites. And we find that David 
was not content with killing men and wasting the 
countr3\ His thirst for revenge and his spirit of 
hatred was shown by his putting those that fell 
into his hands alive, to torture. *' And he brought 
out the people that were in it, and cut them with 
saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes. 
Even so dealt David with all the cities of the chil- 
dren of Ammon." ''But," says he who believes the 
Bible to be true, and the deeds of those with whom 



178 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the Bible says the Lord was, to be acceptable in his 
sight, '* Was not this done as a punishment from 
the Lord?" and I reply: "Don't! please do not be 
guilty of accusing God of those inhuman cruelties. 
Furthermore, I say, you have only to look in the 
preceding chapter to find why it was done." 

David sent two messengers to the Ammonites with 
peaceful intent, the chapter tells us, but the Am- 
monites, well remembering the deeds and methods 
of the Israelites in times past, laid hold of them as 
spies, and " shaved them and cut off their garments 
in the midst hard by their buttocks and sent them 
away." This, then, was the prime cause of this war 
in which David inflicted those cruel tortures upon 
his vanquished foes. I can easily imagine someone 
who has been driven from their first shelter saying, 
" But how do you know that anyone thinks it was 
right for David to do those things ?" Because they 
say they think so. I only take their word for it. 
"But there is no thus saith the Lord connected 
with it, and nothing that commends it or that says 
David did right in this matter." Is there not ? I 
like to hear people talk that way, for it shows that 
their hearts revolt from such deeds, and tells me 
there is hope ; tells me that men have grown better 
than their creeds, aye, better in spite of their 
creeds. But this is the way that I know the Bible 
upholds these deeds of fiendishness. The whole 
tenor of this narative is commendatory, and -allows 
that it was considered a commendable deed. ' Fur- 
thermore, if this book is the word of God, do you 
suppose that God would. allow deeds like those to go 



WHAT m THE BIBLE? 179 

uncondemnecl if they were condemnahle ? Nor is this 
all ; I have still stronger proof, and proof that no 
one who believes the Bible can or dare question. 
We turn to 1 Kings xv, 5, and read : " David did 
that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and 
turned not aside from anything that he commanded 
him all the days of his life, save only in the matter 
of Uriah the Hittite." I have only to add to those 
who still maintain that God did, does, or will ever, 
under any circumstances, uphold the commission of 
such deeds as those that make the world shudder to 
contemplate, to turn their backs upon Christ and 
his teachings (in name as well as in theory), upon 
every principle and on every attribute worthy to be 
held by those who borrow his name, and, like those 
in the day^ of the Inquisition and the rack, with 
whom your views are in accord, go thou and do like- 
wise. Do not try to serve two masters. Abandon 
either God or the devil, and be at least consistent. 
If more is needed to show the reader that the Bible 
is a composition of men and full of false theories 
regarding God, and false teachings, aye, and even 
falseliood, let them turn to 2 Kings ii, 23, 24, aud 
read the account of Elisha cursing the children. It 
seems that as Elisha was going up to Bethel some 
little children came out by the way and made sport 
of him, saying, "Go up, thou baldhead," which 
greatly angered Elisha and caused him to curse the 
children in the name of the Lord, which resulted in 
two she-bears coming out of the woods and tearing 
forty-two of them. What a precious account this 
is! How very accurate! Just forty-two of those 



180 HELiaiON AND THE BIBLE. 

children were torn by the bears for being saucy to 
Elisha. Then, what a fine example of the love and 
goodness of God, that for so slight an offense from 
children who had not come to the age of understand- 
ing, he should punish them so severely. I must 
unhesitatingly pronounce this an unmitigated false- 
hood. False both in principle and in statement of 
fact. If other words are necessary I will say : 
False in teaching that God would do such a thing, 
and false in stating that such a thing ever did take 
place ; and I am willing to rest my hope of immor- 
tality upon the correctness of my assertion and be- 
lief. 

On the composition of the New Testament I have 
little comment to offer here. Enough has been 
given elsewhere in this book to show that I think it 
a combination of the compositions of men. Its 
teachings are far advanced over the teachings of the 
Old Testament, and came to us in a much more di- 
rect way. It contains the views of better men than 
those who were instrumental in giving us the Old 
Testament, and is, no doubt, at least founded upon 
fact ; while the foundation of the Mosaic teachings 
was simplj^ a fiction or false conception of the mind. 

The creation never took place in the manner de- 
scribed in Genesis. Neither was there a fall of 
man. Neither is there a God such as is there de- 
scribed ; for they give to him the attributes of a 
devil. The neighbor of the Old Testament is the 
Jew and his brother Israelite, and in the New Testa- 
ment there shines forth a universal neighborhood 
in which all men are neighbors. The New Testa- 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE ? 181 

ment conception of God is very far ahead of that of 
tlie Old, but in that, as a whole, is not perfect, if I 
can read aright. There are sentiments there that 
are pure and true : *' God is love, whatsoever things 
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso- 
ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
good report ; if there be any virtue and if there be 
any praise, think on these things." Compare the 
teachings of Hebrev/ exclusiveness, inhumanity, and 
uncharitableness with these teachings of Paul : 
" Are all apostles ? Are all prophets ? Are all 
teachers ? Are all workers of miracles ? Have all 
the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? 
Do all interpret? But covet earnestly the best 
gifts ; and yet show I unto you a more excellent 
way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and 
of angels and have not charity, I am become as 
sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though 
I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all 
mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though I have 
all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and 
have not charity, I am nothing. And though I 
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I 
give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it 
profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and 
is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up ; doth not behave itself un- 
seemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, 
thinketh no evil ; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but 
rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all things, believ- 
eth all things; hopeth all things, endureth all 



182 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

things. Charity never faileth ; but whether there 
be prophecies, they shall fail ; whether there 
be tongues, they shall cease ; whether there be 
knowledge, it shall vanish away. For now we know 
in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that 
which is perfect is come, then that which is in part 
shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake 
as a child, I thouglit as a child ; but when I became 
a man I put away childish things. For now we see 
through a glass, darkly, but then face to face ; now 
I know in part ; but then shall I know even as also 
I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, 
these three; but the greatest of these is charity." 
This I regard as a very fine composition, setting 
forth most excellent sentiment in regard to the 
workings of the law of love. The evident object of 
the writer was to exalt charity (or love) above all 
else. It would not do to accept every word of this 
powerful and well-exhibited exaltation of charity as 
something to be put to literal use, as it would 
hardly be accounted wise to believe all things, but 
these things seem to me like adjectives used to 
qualify Paul's idea of the greatness and absolute 
necessity and supremacy of love ; or expressions 
such as men ofttimes give utterance to when they 
are carried away by the all-importance of some idea, 
and forget to be exact in their choice of language. 
When I believed the Bible to be true, I believed 
that if its meaning was understood, it taught the 
universal salvation of mankind. I now think that 
were it possible for the Bible to be true, it would 
prove neither the one thing nor the other ; neither 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 183 

eternal punishment nor eternal happiness for man- 
kind ; or, to be more exact, if it were possible for 
it to be true, it would prove neither universalism 
nor partialism (orthodoxy). I say were it possible 
for it to be true, because a book of opposite teach- 
ings, given as iniallible truth, in both cases, is 
plainly not true. And were you to accept such an 
impossible thing as the truth of such a record, it 
would not prove anything for you after you had ac- 
cepted it, as it would testify both ways and therefore 
prove nothing. I know the beautiful teachings 
about the house with many mansions ; I know that 
Luke says that '^ God is not a God of the dead, but 
of the living ; for all live unto him," and I believe 
them, but my believing them does not prove them. 
So also I know the story of the sheep and the goats, 
found in Matthew xxv, and how it tells that the son 
of man shall sit upon the throne of his glory and 
judge the nations (like Osiris of the Egyptians), 
separating the sheep from the goats, putting the 
sheep on the right hand and the goats on the left ; 
and how he shall "say unto those on his right hand, 
*' Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you from the foundation of the world ;" 
and how it says he shall say unto those upon his 
left hand, ''Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." 
But because men believe these words it does not 
prove them to be true. Let not those whose hearts 
are better than their judgment tell me this is one of 
Christ's parables, and so does not mean just what it 
says, for the rule which I laid down long ago applies 



184 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

here, and I say, if this parable is not a true utuf^- 
tration — is not a true parable illustrating facts of 
comparative and equal importance, and conse- 
quences equally serious to man — then it is a false 
illustration and becomes simply a symbolic false- 
hood. The various statements regarding salvation 
and damnation vary so much, and are so inconsist- 
ent and out of keeuing, one with the other, that of 
themselves they prove nothing except contrary 
opinions. Let others do as they like, but for my- 
self, I do not base my belief in the ultimate holi- 
ness and happiness of mankind upon the statements 
of the Bible, but upon my conception of God, which 
tells me that if the spirit of kindness, gentleness, 
goodness, charity, are of God, and from God ; in 
whom of these there is a fulness ; being the great 
and inexhaustible source whence come these 
fragments which exist in us ; and that if we who 
have so small a part would not condemn our fellow 
creatures to eternal torture ; he- in whom dwelleth 
the fulness of these would but exercise that spirit 
to perfection as we also exercise it in part. But up 
pops some wise little orthodox and pipes in my ear: 
*' You have forgotten that God is a God of justice as 
well as of mercy. Don't forget justice ! eternal 
justice ! God will not forget justice, for he is just 
as well as merciful !" Thank you, little orthodox, I 
have no doubt that God is a God of justice, but what 
do you know about GocVs justice? You little 
scamp, you would not be fit to administer human 
justice (which only partakes of God's justice as it 
contains that spirit), much less the great and per- 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? . 185 

feet moral justice of the God of all. And with your 
little eyes so closed by narrowness of vision and 
failure to percieve the larger view of God by reason 
of tliat corrupt idea that was held by barbarians 
and calle(i God's justice, you talk to me of things 
you know not of. ''But," says another, " don't you 
believe in killing men ? Don't you believe in capi- 
tal punishment? Don't j^ou think it is right to 
take the life of a man who breaks the law against 
life ?" I have read somewhere that " whoso shed- 
deth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," 
but I am not prepared \o undertake to maintain the 
goodness or correctness of this teaching. You ask 
me (practically) if heaven and earth, the spiritual 
and temporal worlds, are not carrie'd on in the same 
way ; and if tliey do not have similar laws, and if 
they do not similarly administer them ; or, ratlier, 
you ask me if God and man are not just alike ; and 
I answer that that has been the opinion of Bible- 
makers of all ages, that God was like them ; or, 
rather, they erected as the attributes of God those 
things which were in accord AVith their conception 
of what God was, and thereby attributed to him the 
principles (or lack of principles) which they them- 
selves had. They deified their own ideas, and in 
many cases, their own passions, and called them a 
part of God. 

If in the exercise of what you are pleased to call 
his justice, you cause God to abandon the precepts 
which you think are so commendable in men (suppos- 
ing you to be a believer in the teachings of the New 
Testament), I say you don't know what you are 



186 BELIGION AND THE BiBtfi. 

talking about. But let us go back to a considera- 
tion of some of the New Testament matters, as I 
purpose to examine this question of punishment 
further in another chapter. The closing verse in 
the book of John, where he says that if tfee things 
which Jesus did were all written, ''I suppose that 
even the world itself could not contain the books 
that should be written," is indeed a most remark- 
able supposition, and shows to what lengths even 
the writers of the New Testament would go to mag- 
nify even an unimportant matter (for that Jesus per- 
formed innumerable wonders is by no means impor- 
tant to prove) and serves to show us what we can 
expect from them in connection with other matters. 
A man that would make that statement ought not 
•to have any hesitancy in decla,ring that the whale 
swallowed Jonah, or even that Jonah swallowed the 
whale. But John says he supposes so. Well, when 
the man wrote that Michael the archangel disputed 
with the devil about the body of Moses, as Jude 
tells us, very likely lie only supposed so, although, 
according to the accounts of Moses, there is little 
wonder that the devil (providing there was such an 
individual) laid claim to him, as there seemed to be 
a good deal of evidence to support his claim. I do 
not forget that it is Jesus who is reported as utter- 
ing the account of the goats and the sheep, with the 
devil, his angels, and the everlasting fire to which 
he is represented as consigning them. If Jesus said 
that, I think he was mistaken. If he did not say it, 
then he is incorrectly reported ; and the latter, we 
have every reason to believe. We also find state- 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 187 

ments directly contrary to each other attributed to 
Jesus. As to whether or not he uttered them, I 
know nothing, but that both of them are correct, I 
know is not correct. In Mark ix, 40, we read: *' For 
he that is not against us is on our part ;" and in 
Luke ii, 23, the same man (Jesus) is represented as 
saying : " He that is not with me is against me." 

No argument is needed to prove that both prop- 
ositions cannot be correct. To my mind, Moses got 
some ideas from men much better civilized than the 
Israelites and coupled them with his own thoughts 
and so formed the nucleus of the Hebrew faith, to 
which were added the barnacles of superstition and 
fable which naturally became attached in after 
years, coupled with the flashes of a growing and de- 
veloping better idea of a God which at times we 
see shining through the clouds of wrath and cursing 
with which they surrounded Jehovah. And finally 
that medley of tradition and teaching was bound to- 
gether with the cord of a *' thus saith the Lord " by 
Ezra the scribe, with such additions as he saw fit to 
make, and then and not until then, were these 
accumulations crystallized into an ever-present and 
ever-perfect written law to which the Jew turned at 
all times for his decisions, both of things temporal 
and things spiritual ; and which we in our won- 
drous stupidity have unthinkingly accepted as the 
actual word and will of God. 

The New Testament likewise had its Ezras — not 
one, but four of them. Their foundation was a pure 
and noble life, and the teachings of a man whose 
ideas were as far ahead of the ideas contained in the 



188 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

*' Law" as the east is from the west. To the life 
of this Light of the World the Jews sought to at- 
tach their Old Testament expectations of the coming 
of the king. Some of them quickly saw they had 
no authority for so doing, and abandoned it, while 
others, whose faith was stimulated by an uncontrol- 
lable desire for the fulfillment of that for which they 
had so long waited, hoped on; but seeing their 
failure in the death of Jesus, they scattered in 
abandonment of hope ; a hope which they rekin- 
dled upon the new foundation of the theory that he 
would return to life, and the afterthought that he 
had so taught them, only they had not compre- 
hended what he meant. 

These crystallized into the " messianic hope," or 
the idea of the second coming of Christ (stimulated 
as we have seen by the Egyptian theory of a similar 
experience in Osiris), which became the great theme 
of the apostles and writers of the next fifty or sixty 
years of the Christian era, and which after more than 
eighteen hundred years is still retained by a few, 
while the most have sought a new interpretation of 
words which one day (when they were written) 
meant what they said, but which they now say (as 
they have not come true) do not mean that, or 
should be understood in a difi*erent way ; just the 
same as those who first followed Jesus looked for 
him to declare himself the temporal king of the 
Jews, and who at his death still believed that 
he was the one for whom they had taken him, and 
that he would return to earth and accomplish, while 
they yet lived, those things for which they had 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 189 

looked so long. And so it has ever been. When 
one theory is untenable they relegate it to the past by 
saying they did not understand the true meaning of 
the words, and set in its place some new interpreta- 
tion which they know to be the correct one, only to 
have it sent following back after the other and have 
its place taken by still another which they also 
know is the right meaning. The thing itself is as 
true as truth itself, and has been all these years; 
only they have to change its coat. Their compass 
always points due north, they say, although they 
often find that what they had thought was due 
north was south-southeast. And so when they find 
it pointing some new way, they say the compass is 
all right and that it always pointed that way, only 
folks didn't know it. 

This is very convenient and avoids the necessity 
of admitting that the compass is ever at fault. The 
ethics taught by Moses were not for the first time 
set forth before men by Moses; neither were the 
precej)ts taught by Jesus given to the world first by 
him and him onlj-. They were each the ofi*spring 
of difi'erent states of hunmn condition, and coexist- 
ent with those different degrees of advanced thought 
and civilization. Man's temporal or physical con- 
dition may not at all times advance with the same 
rapidity as his spiritual or ethical condition, and 
vice versa. In other words, one's ethics may be bet- 
ter than his agriculture, and another nation may 
have better agriculture than ethics, but there seems 
to be a law of progress inherent in man by which 
when free from artificial restraints of his own crea- 



190 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

tion, his spiritual nature and his temporal advance- 
ment go hand in hand, barring some natural defect 
of soil or climate. The Persians and Egyptians 
both had what truly seems to us to be wonderfully 
good and true ideas of man's duty to his fellow-man, 
wonderfully good and modern conceptions of the 
attributes of God and his greatness. Hand in hand 
with those developments which we can only com- 
pare to Christianity, we find there existed a most 
remarkable material development which can also be 
compared to no other age of the world than the 
present. Does not this teach us that while there 
seem to be, as it were, epochs of prosperity and ad- 
versity (the two great nations which we have cited 
and which existed for thousands and thousands of 
years, only to be almost blotted out and lost be- 
neath the surges of darkness that overran them, be- 
ing striking examples) like the workings of the laws 
of nature that hav made seas where once was land, 
and land where once the waves rolled and fell in 
ripples on the pebbled shore, that sweep the earth 
with a tornado tearing up by the roots every comely 
thing within its reach, and blotting out alike the 
hamlet, the town, or the forest, as may chance to 
come in its course ; laying desolate that which was 
once wreathed in beauty and filled with the prattle 
of children and the songs of birds, so there is 
within man's breast that spark divine that expands 
and broadens and dilates, giving him the concep- 
tions which he holds and which he must do his 
part in developing? Eeligion, like civilization (by 
religion I mean a modern conception or something 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 19l 

worthy of the name), did not come down from 
heaven in a minute and present itself like a bride 
adorned for the wedding, but grew, like all things, 
little by little and more and more, and where unre- 
tarded by obstructions and helped on bj^ a desire 
to search after the hidden things of God (hidden 
only because we had not j^et learned to use our 
eyes), it blossomed into the fragrant flower of love 
— no matter where dwelt the man, whether in 
America, Greece, Persia, in Galilee of. Judea, or in 
the fertile valley of the Nile. AH of which we have 
an^^ actual knowledge tells us this is true. All else 
is shrouded in the myths of unknown ages and is 
inconsistent with all we see and know. That Jesus 
uttered all the words of love and help attributed to 
him is by no means of the first importance to prove. 
That he lived and taught somewhat after the man- 
ner of the teachings attributed to him,*I have no 
doubt ; for around that life his followers and dis- 
ciples hang these garlands and to him attribute 
these words. Around his name are crystallized the 
teachings and the conception of God and duty 
which came to us through him, no matter if among 
the teachings of Buddha, Plato, Socrates, and 
Zoroaster they might all be found. They came to 
Jesus of Galilee and he accepted them ; he gathered 
them as a bee gathers honey from the flowers, be- 
cause he saw that they were good ; bound them to- 
gether with his life, and sealed them with his blood ; 
or, at B,nj rate, by reason of him they were spread 
abroad over the earth. Could they have come un- 
linked with Judaism, the world would have been 



192 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

spared . great pain, but they did not, and we must 
make the best of it. 

Let us always remember one thing ; it is not the 
individuality that is of primal importance, it is 
teaching. It is not who said it, it is what was said.. 
It is not*tlie man who uttered these things, but the 
things themselves that are of the first importance. 
Prove to me (were it possible) that such a man as 
Jesus never lived, and you have not taken one atom 
from the teaching contained in the words attributed 
to him, Those conceptions existed and were re- 
corded, and we have them to accept if true and 
good, and reject if not so; and their truth cannot 
be effected — cannot be effaced from the page of hu- 
man conception — though you prove that they were 
uttered by Pilate instead of liim whom he con- 
demned. Those conceptions appeal to the hearts 
of men and they cannot be «effjiced. Men who have 
false and distorted ideas of God, aye, even those 
who still hold them, though they think they accept 
the teachings of Jesus, find themselves gradually 
losing their creedal ideas through the working of 
the divine within j;hem, and some day, despite the 
teachings of barbarians, which they now try to 
mingle with the spirit of Christ, they will awake 
from their sleep, and, remembering Jesus, they will 
at least believe that hi^ teachings are embodied 
in the words, '* And now abideth faith, hope, love, 
these three ; but the greatest of tliese is love." 

And again I say tliat all tliat is pure and true in 
the teacliings of Jesus will live, and all else will die. 
The words that we read represent the conception of 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 193 

someone. If Jesus did not give utterance to them, 
someone else did, and tlie words themselves are 
what we want. Names are nothing in and of them- 
selves ; it is that which the name represents which 
gives us delight. You bring me a rose and a lily, 
laden with fragrance and sparkling with dew, and 
they would be just as sweet, and no sweeter, were 
you to call one a corn-flower and the other a poppy. 
And this rule applies to Buddha and Zoroaster and 
to all men and at all times. 

Suppose you tell me that Buddha did not teach 
all those fine and godlike duties to our fellow-man, 
and suppose you tell me that Zoroaster was not the 
author of all of the Zend Avesta ; that these things 
were the work of other men ; and what do I care 
for that? Is Zoroaster or Buddha an idol that I 
worship? What do I care what house of flesh it 
was in which dwelt the spirit that shone forth in 
the words I prize ? Take care lest you all be found 
in idolatry worshiping a body of flesh instead of a 
spirit of truth. 

" But," says someone, *' do not the miracles prove 
the Bible to be true ?" and I answer : '' No, the 
miracles themselves are not proven, so they can 
not very well be looked upon as proof." If we find 
(as we have found) that the Bible statements are 
often incorrect, both in principle and in point of 
fact, even in relation to common or natural things, 
we should use very poor judgment in accepting the 
statements of the same men as truth when they re- 
late to things both uncommon and unnatural ; and 
which our reason and the knowledge of to-day tell 



^■?^J\ *^i 



194 • BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

US never did take place. Other religions besides 
the Hebrew and Christian have their miracles, as 
they call them, but we do not accept them. We 
laugh at them for believing such ridiculous stories, 
and call the man a fraud that wrote them, although 
they have the same evidence in their support as 
our own — namely, the statements of the writer, 
which come to us with no other verification. Some 
of the miracles of the Buddhistic religion are very 
much like ours, or, to speak more correctly, many of 
our miracles are very much like those of the 
Buddhists, for theirs, we must remember, were in 
existence many years before Jesus was born. The 
language of the writers who recorded these fabu- 
lous wonders which they said took place is ofttimes 
grand. Let ma take a few examples from " Light and 
Darkness," by J. E. and A. H. Godbey : '' At the 
conception of Buddha, the ten thousand world- 
systems trembled at once, and were all illuminated 
by a preternatural light. The blind from birth re- 
ceived the power to see ; the deaf heard the joyful 
noise ; the dumb burst forth into song ; the lame 
danced; the crooked became straight; those in con- 
finement were released of their bands ; the fires of 
all the hells (one hundred and ninety-six) were ex- 
tinguished ; the diseases of the sick were cured ; 
bulls and buffaloes roared in triumph ; horses and 
asses and elephants joined in the acclaim ; lions 
sent forth the thunder of their voices ; instruments 
of music unstruck sent forth their sound ; the winds 
were loaded with perfume ; birds paused in their 
flight ; the waves of the sea became placid and its 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 195 

waters sweet ; the whole surface of the ocean was 
covered with flowers ; the sky was covered with a 
floral canopy, and flowers were showered from the 
heavens. As soon as he was born he sprang to his 
feet exclaiming, Now am I the noblest of men. 
This is the last time I shall ever be born ! The 
dwellers of ten thousand worlds shielded him with 
umbrellas twelve miles high ; they sounded his 
praise with conch-shells one hundred and twenty- 
six cubits long [notice the accuracy], the blast 
whereof reverberated for four months and a half ; 
others brought harps twelve miles long, and deluged 
him with golden caskets, tiaras, perfumes, and no 
end of gifts. The same day that gave birth to Sid- 
dartha was born his wife, his horse, his attendant, 
and his chief disciple ; and the same day sprouted 
from the earth the tree under w^hich he sat meditat- 
ing when he became the Buddha." 

" Tremendous was his fight with the powers of 
darkness during the twenty-four hours before he 
became the Buddha. The devil came against him 
mounted on an elephant a thousand miles high ; he 
had five hundred heads and as many flaming tongues. 
He had a thousand eyes and a thousand arms, with 
each of which he wielded a different kind of 
weapon; and he led an army mounted on bulls, 
bears, lions, buffaloes, boars, tigers, panthers, and 
dragons — extending one hundred and sixty-four 
miles in every direction. Siddartha whipped the 
Avhole crew. Raindrops as big as palm-trees fell, 
plowing up the earth; but to the valiant prince they 
were like water-lilies. A hundred burning moun- 



^ T -V\'^:iq 



196 EELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

tains, hurled on him through the air, turned to gar- 
lands of flowers." How is this for miracles? Al- 
though the giving of sight to the blind from birth, 
hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, and health 
to the sick ; though the lame danced and the 
crooked became straight like to those things that 
one book says took place some five hundred years 
later under the power of Jesus, yet taken all to- 
gether, our little story of the miraculous and won- 
derful pales into insignificance beside this account 
of India. I admit that the reading of the account 
of the wonders that it is said took place in connec- 
tion with the birth and work of Buddha (only a 
part of which I have given) has afforded me many a 
laugh. There is something about this account that 
touches that point which is said to be above the 
ridiculous and makes it in a sense sublime. For 
gigantic miracles, for a stupendous exhibition of the 
supernatural and impossible, I have never read anj^- 
thing that approached it, although in the true sense 
one miracle would be as liable to occur as another ; 
for whether it be the least or the greatest, it pre- 
supposes the setting aside of a natural law, and one 
could be set aside as well as another ; and none 
ever was or ever will be set aside. I like the good 
teachings of Buddha, and say they are true. I like 
the good teachings of Jesus, and say they are true ; 
but when you come to these Munchausen stories, I 
say : Oh, no, tell that to someone else if you want it 
believed. My head isn't made up in a way so that 
I can possibly do it. If I told you I believed it, I 
should lie ; it is simply out of the question. I 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 197 

can't believe it any more than I can believe that 
there is a land in which the trees all grow bottom 
up, with their roots in the air and just the tip ends 
of the branches resting on the surface of the ground. 
Again, I say, all miracle assumes the setting aside 
of natural and universal law ; and experience and 
reason tell us this is not, and never has been, done. 
" But," says a believer in the miraculous, " don't you 
think that God can set aside his own laws?" I 
reply: "I do not assume to define just what that 
power by which all things exist that do exist can do, 
but I do not think he can." If you assume that 
God can set aside his laws, you make those laws 
cease to be immutable and make them become 
changeable, and therefore it seems to me ungodlike. 
I cannot conceive of an allwise being seeing the 
necessity of changing his laws on account of some 
condition that has arisen in connection with the 
creatures that he has made ; for his laws, being per- 
fect, were so formed through his infinite wisdom as 
to preclude the possibility of such a necessity aris- 
ing. " But it is not the setting aside of the law," 
argues my friend, *' it is simply one law fulfill- 
ing another by taking its place, simply by over- 
powering it, as we see one force of nature overcome 
some other force of nature and change the previous 
channel of results." Very good ; then what becomes 
^^f your supernatural? Tou only show by that line 
of reasoning that what you have hitherto called 
supernatural is simply natural, and comes in the 
carrying out of natural law, and is therefore not 
miraculous, but simply natural ; and therefore mira- 



198 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

cles have no existence except in the mind of man. 
Moreover, when a man makes the claim that a thing 
is supernatural, he cannot realize what he assumes, 
or he would never assume it — namely , that he has 
knowledge of all things natural, and of at least 
some things that are supernatural. For my part, 
although there are many things the workings of 
which I do not understand, I conceive them all to be 
natural, only I am not able to fully cpmprehend 
them. If there be any occurrences on earth that 
are supernatural, I do not see how the natural can 
compreh end it ; and as all things of which we have 
any definite knowledge seem to have proven them- 
selves to be in accordance with nature, I do not 
assume to say that anything is supernatural. And, 
on account of all things (so far as our knowledge ex- 
tends) proving themselves to be in accord with nat- 
ure, it surely does not seem to be an unwarranted 
assumption to think that all things that have any 
real existence come in obedience to the same all- 
pervading and universal law. 

"And what of revelation?" Revelation? what is 
revelation ? All that I ever learned, every precept 
that ever found lodgment in my mentality, was to 
me a revelation ; and so with everyone. We com- 
mence in infancy, with the first intelligent per- 
ception, and continue until death, or until we cease 
to be in condition to receive new knowledge, and afl 
things to us are revelations. " But where does it 
come from ?" Where does the wind come from, and 
the rain, and the light, and the heat that quickens 
the seed and causes the corn to grow and flourish 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 199 

and ripen, yielding bread for the sustenance of 
man ? Where did the revelation come from to the 
man who said : '' The heavens declare the glory of 
God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. 
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night 
showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor lan- 
guage where their voice is not heard. Their line is 
gone out through all the earth, and their words to 
the end of the world. In them he hath set a taber- 
nacle^ for the sun?" 

How plainly this old Psalm tells us what the sun, 
the moon, and the stars told men in the days of old, 
as they tell them yet (as well as the earth and all 
that in it is) and will to the end of time continue to 
tell the story of God in the language of all nations. 
" Forever singing as they shine, The hand that made 
us is divine." 

Revelation th^re is in abundance, but special 
revelation cor^eth not at all. By this I mean that 
all things come by fixed and ordered law, and that a 
fulfillment of the conditions is what produces the 
result. In other words, it is one continual story of 
development, evolution, if you wish to call it by that 
name. '' You believe, then, that Jesus was a 
product of the time ?" Yes, and that time had 
arrived. Is it any better to think that the power 
that produced a thing planned some especial devel- 
opment which was to be produced in some especial 
man, at a certain time, than it is to think that there 
was running through all this something that we call 
a law, that wliere conditions were ripe, would pro- 
duce, without any special degree, that same progress- 



^00 RELIGION AND THE BIBLB. 

ive result ? And I hear someone ask : " Is this 
any better than the old way?" and I reply: *' It 
seems to be true that this is the way it is done, and 
undoubtedly, therefore, it is the best way possible, 
and the truth is best for us to know." 

When men cease to think that the teachings of 
Jesus were a fulfillment of the teachings of Moses ; 
when they cease to teach, in substance, that the 
truth is a fulfillment of a falsehood, which had so 
long been a delusion and a snare, then will .their 
eyes be opened, and they will not only say, " Plato, 
thou reasonest well,*' but, ^' Plato, Socrates, Buddha, 
and Zoroaster, ye all do reason well, and are 
indeed all partakers of the same spirit of him who 
died upon the cross — Jesus the son of Joseph of 
Galilee." And then from the north and from the 
south, from the east and from the west, will come 
one universal answer to the question, What is the 
Bible? 



CHAPTER X. 

How Man Advances. 

How does man advance ? It often seems to me 
as though the reply could be all summed up in one 
word — backwards. I try to look over the great past, 
and I see mankind divided into groups, and in nearly 
all of these groups they are looking back over the 
way by which they came, and are slowly, and 
apparently unconsciously, moving backward ; get- 
ting gradually farther and farther away from some 
original starting-point, and farther and farther ad- 
vanced on the road of life and the journey of pro- 
gression and development. In some of these groups 
many of them are on their knees before a huge pile 
of stones they have builded up, and, with closed 
eyes and upraised hands, bow in humble adoration, 
until they seem, as it were, to come to themselves 
and find that many of those with whom they be- 
longed have drawn some little distance away ; 
thither they follow with eyes fixed, like the eyes of 
their brothers, on the things from which they grad* 
ually retire. 

Away back over the track we gaze until we see it 
lost in pitchy darkness. Light there is where they 
are, and it shines upon the monuments which they 



202 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

have raised and to wliicli they seem to look for guid- 
ance and inspiration ; but it comes not from the 
way from which they come, but from the way toward 
which tbey are unconsciously moving. Shining over 
their shoulders it strikes upon the things which 
they are surely, though slowly, leaving, and they 
chatter among themselves and declare thSI the light 
is there, and emanates from those things upon which 
it shines. By and by, in one of these groups, a man 
takes his eyes from the old way and glances about on 
every hand. He turns about and faces the light and 
takes a hurried and astonished look along that way. 
His breath quickens, his eye brightens, and he 
clutches his neighbor by the arm and says : '' See ! 
Look there ! Oh, what a glorious view ! See what 
a country, how light and full of life, and over by 
that mountain there, see what wondrous trees and 
flowers. How all nature seems to smile and bid us 
come ! Surely this land that we behold is better 
than that wherein we dwell. Let us away and quick 
possess it." They turn unto their fellows and tell 
them what they saw. ''Audacious mortals!" sternly 
they reply, ''what evil spirit hath your souls pos- 
sessed, causing you to turn thus from that sacred 
shrine of perfect truth and light 3^our fathers wor- 
shiped long? Think you that some deceptive gaze 
to you revealed a thing more fair than that which, 
iong ago, God gave your ancient kin? And think 
you God can change ? Can he deceive ? Are not 
those things which from his hand hath come, per- 
fect and pure ? And can there better be ? Bow 
down upon your knees and sue the throne of gtace 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 203 

for pardon ; though you small deserve aught but his 
condemnation. No ; you will not obey ? Some 
fairer field your eyes have gazed upon, and you will 
sure possess it ? Then, out upon thee, for the curse 
of God will find thee out. In sorrow shall you end 
your days, and dreadful be your fate. Satan hath 
tempted you, and you did yield. No more in peace 
you and your seed shall dwell, but ever be accursed. 
Go on, proud scorner of the things of old God vouch- 
safed unto men." 

The two men turned and, gazing each on each, 
while mingled shame and sorrow, grief and joy, 
played quick across each face, thus spake : " We 
thought to show a thing to be desired ; a lovely 
place in which we all might dwell, a fairer realm 
than we had e'er beheld, a bounteous gift from the 
same bounteous hand — a fairer light from whence 
our light has come. 

"And there we e'er might dwell in perfect peace ; 
An Eden fair indeed to see, 
And one we will possess." 

Scorned by their friends, these two, with all that 
they possess, set out and reach the goal. And there 
they dwell, finding much joy, and greater light, more 
perfect peace, and better, truer ways. Time passes 
on, and many years have come and gone. A numer- 
ous people fill the land and have their temples and 
their shrines, and worship and sing praise. Great 
be the God that brought them out of darkest night 
and set them on the top of Zion's hill — a wondrous 
place — and much they marvel how their kin could 



y^ 



204 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

e'er have been content to live in lands so dark. 
Thus they live, and think, and teach ; full of self- 
gratulation for their wisdom in having seen and 
chosen a dwelling-place so fair, which they declare 
to be perfection, and in their turn wonder how the 
rest of humanity can dwell elsewhere. And again 
the same scene is enacted. 

Some man who finds himself prompted to learn 
something which he has not been told, begins to 
look about him ; and when he removes his eyes from 
the old objects that have so long filled his mind, he 
finds himself asking questions of them — and ques- 
tions are awful things ; they cause him to look out 
upon new fields, to wander out into new pastures, 
and beside other streams than those wherein his 
childhood's feet had once been taught to roam, as 
had those of many years before him, and he finds 
new treasures, and gets new light ; and because he 
has done this thing, he is denounced as an enemy 
who is setting forth some new thing that they just 
know cannot be true, because it is not like what has 
been taught before. Instead of turning about and 
looking for light in the source of light, they face 
eternally toward darkness, literally worshiping the 
tilings that, one by one, and more and more, are 
proven weak and crude ; admitting— if at all — much 
against their wills, anything which is not branded — 
*' Aged two thousand years." 

This is not a mere fancy — it is an actual fact. 
Man is completely turned around. His Eden is in 
the past, and so of course he thinks he must look 
that way for example and guidance. And this all 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 206 

comes from that one false notion that man was, but 
is not! instead of recognizing the fact that man i^as 
not, but is, and is to he ! 

That the goal is in the future, and the starting 
point in the dark and imperfect past — that man did 
not start away up among the perfections and fall 
away down among the dust and dirt and mire of in- 
significance and sin where he grovels and crawls, 
but that he started at the foot of the ladder (wher- 
ever that was), and is climbing up, and up, and up, 
and going on higher and higher, despite all the false 
conceptions of ages of darkness. 

Would he but turn about and devote the same 
effort to finding new and more perfect truths that he 
has spent trying to maintain fable and falsehood, the* 
race would take such strides as would astonish the 
world. 

Stop this walking backwards ! Stop this reverse 
idea of human progress ! Stop this absurd and 
self-evident false teaching, founded upon a myth, 
and let the faculties that God has given you do 
their perfect work. 

Socrates taught a better and more perfect idea of 
God, and man's duty to his fellow-man, than was 
commonly held by those about him, and they killed 
him for it. 

Jesus did not take the law of Moses for his guide, 
but claimed to be subject to a higher and more per- 
fect law ; and the Jews cried out against him as an 
impostor and a seducer, and crucified him. 

Martin Luther turned his back upon the church 
of Home, and narrowly escaped death. Servetus 



206 RELiaiON AND THE BIBLE. 

declined to believe that God was divided into three 
parts, of which God was one, a man was another, and 
a spirit composed the rest ; and he was persecuted 
by Protestants and Catholics alike, and was finally 
arrested at the instance of Calvin and burned to 
death by slow fire. Look at the church reforms and 
dissensions of all ages. See the heresy trials of to- 
day, and you see a reflection of the same thing in a 
more moderate form. Men get too good for their 
creeds, and then there is a cry of heresy. Some 
man winks at the belief of infant damnation or 
eternal punishment, and just lets the subject stay 
out of sight because his soul revolts against it, and 
he really does not believe it. He does not want to 
•come out and say so, and so he writhes and twists 
under the lash of a quickened and larger soul until 
he can finally stand it no longer, and he says he be- 
lieves in "future probation." Some of the brethren 
give great internal amens, and others pursue him with 
an unrelenting spirit, very consistent with their 
creed, and leave no stone unturned to punish this 
man who has turned his back upon a dogma of — I 
nearly said the devil, but as there is not anyone of 
that name, I will say of darkness, and that will do 
just as well and be more correct. Looking back, 
still looking back ; to them all good comes from the 
past, and so they face that way, still looking into 
darkness for the light, and every ray they get is 
forced upon them, and they seek for no more, but 
get the next in the same way, instead of trying to 
see where the first came from and taking that for a 
candle to light their path in the search for more. 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 207 

But what is man, anyway ? I say he is an evolu- 
tionary, a progressive, being ; that he is the high- 
est order of earthly existence, or, better still, that 
he is a progressive spirit, dwelling in a house of clay, 
undergoing a process of improvement and perfecting. 
I suppose that all men believe that improvement 
takes place from cultivation, and I trust that all 
will admit also that the human race, as a whole, is 
advancing, is improving, is developing. Some object 
greatly to the idea that man started from a low con- 
dition of life, and has gradually, step by step, in 
spite of follies incident to that state, and persisted 
in blindly and without reason, arrived at his present 
condition, and prefer to think that he commenced 
" perfect," or " a little lower than the angels," and 
then disgraced himself and became a groveling 
brute unworthy the notice of the power that brought 
him into being. 

For myself, I should prefer to think my ancestors 
started in life in very humble and unostentatious 
circumstances, having within them a divine principle 
which was working on and ever helping, improving, 
and developing them, until they reached their pres- 
ent condition of existence, than to think that they 
were, at the outset, in a high condition of existence, 
having the knowledge that would necessarily accom- 
pany such an existence, and an acquaintance with 
the responsibilities which their acts would involve, 
which must also accompany such an angelic and 
ideal state ; and that the very first pair of them 
turned their backs upon all the things to be desired, 
and inflicted upon theniselves and their posterity a 



208 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

terrible and lasting curse, debasing them to a con- 
dition that called forth the anger and disgust of 
God, the results of which, after the lapse of many 
thousands of years, they have not removed. I had 
rather be a respectable brute who was fulfilling his 
mission, and is getting better and better, than be a 
cur whose ancestor was an angel. While I believe 
in this law of evolution, I do not believe in the 
theory of evolution from a monkey, and I will try 
to tell you why. Why it is that men desire to prove 
that their distant grandparents went on all fours, 
and swung from trees by their tails, I could never 
understand, although the belief in man's descent 
from animals (and in some cases birds and even 
fishes) was a common belief of ancient savages. If 
anyone can prove it to Fe true, I will accept it, no 
matter if I do have to change over likes, fancies, 
ideas, and beliefs. I never heard a man undertake 
to prove that an elephant sprang from a wharf-rat, 
or that a cow was evolved from a dromedary. I 
know that they rely a good deal upon similarity in 
bodily form, and show us the pictures of those gen- 
tlemen — who they think are their near relatives — 
whom they introduce as Mr. " Siamang," Mr. *' Ou- 
rang," and Mr. "Chimpanzee," and seem to take a 
good deal of pleasure in telling us about them. • One 
of these has the same number of bones, they say, 
as a man, and they expect that he is next to that 
fellow they have never yet been able to find, 
whom they call the missing link. They tell us about 
how they trace back by the fossil remains and learn 
that certain animals were evolved from certain other 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 209 

animals, and that the animal from which came the 
horse was a creature of small size and had five toes 
instead of a round hoof. All right, go ahead and 
call up all of those proofs you can, and after 3^ou 
get through just let me ask you to show me one of 
those five-toed little fellows. 

Show me any one of the animals, alive and in a 
good state of health, from which was evolved some 
animal that dwells upon the earth. Why, it simply 
can't be done. Suppose I accept as truth all the 
argument you present in that line, the more there 
is of it the worse oflf you are ; because it shows be- 
yond question that whenever a new species, or a 
new order, or a new variety, whatever you please to 
call it, was ** evolved" from another and a lower, 
the steps by which it came have all disap- 
peared; all vanished, every one of them. No trace 
remains but the long-buried fossils in the earth. 
All of the animals of the various stages of develop- 
ment have died, and only a few buried bones re- 
main to tell the story of former existence. There- 
fore the very existence of the monkey disproves the 
theory utterly. Again, if your man was evolved 
from a monkey, how does it happen that they don't 
continue to evolve? Why don't they keep right on? 
Why didn't they keep at it, when they were in the: 
business, like all other animals, and all become men ? 
If this thing came about by law — this evolution 
from monkey to man — it would most assuredly have 
continued ; for law is law ; it isn't a do so some- 
times, it is a do so always. It is a law, not a chance. 
It is both progressive and positive ; and had man 



210 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

been evolved from a monkey, there wouldn't have 
been a monkey on the face of the earth when Noah 
went into the ark (supposing he did it) ; they would 
have all been grown up little boys and become men. 
This theory is unassailable if the claim of all ex- 
istence being in accord and the result of evolution- 
ary law is good for anything. That man started in 
a low state, both physically and spiritually, I am 
assured ; that he is a development from any animal 
now living upon the earth, I do not believe, for the 
reasons already given. That physical man is in a true 
sense akin to all flesh, I believe ; for that which goes 
to make the flesh of one will make the flesh of an- 
other also ; and that which happeneth to the flesh 
of one happeneth to the other likewise. A man 
might agree that all flesh was akin and that phys- 
ical man was the product of evolution up to a cer- 
tain point and that at that time God (I here use the 
word God in the sense of the common belief, or 
nearly so, as a being who planned the end from the 
beginning and suspended the action of law and 
made its action partial, and not universal. I cannot 
call the power that so acts law, as it is not in 
harmony with the present understanding of the 
word) bestowed upon a part (or pair) of them, the 
gift of the spirit, and that then man became a 
" living soul," elevating him out of his species and 
making him what man now is, while the rest re- 
mained monkeys, and that there is the missing link 
for which men have so long looked in vain, found 
not in the fossils of the earth, bat in the reason of 
man. I am strongly inclined to believe that the 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 211 

church will one day teach a doctrine very much like 
this. The Adamic theory must be abandoned, and 
some such hybrid theory as this would then be in or- 
der. As for myself, it seems to me to be in keeping 
with reason and all known facts to think that the 
soul, the spirit of man, was always coexistent with 
the body, and that his spiritual and physical prog- 
ress have been advancing hand in hand in obedience 
to the great and all-providing law of progress and 
perfection which was his author and is his finisher. 
The man who wrote Ecclesiastes had a gross idea 
of man. To him the physical was the man, and so 
he said : " For that which befalleth the sons of men 
befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as 
the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have 
all one breath ; so that man hath no pre-eminence 
over a beast; for all is vanity" (Eccl. iii, 19). If 
the physical were the man, then indeed would that 
be true that they would all share one common fate 
(though even then, without knowledge to the con- 
trary, I would claim eternal life, even though I 
claimed for all flesh). But if it be true that within 
(us is a principle which no other flesh in any degree 
possesses, then it seems most probable that that is 
what gives to man eternal life, and that that gift is 
not possessed by other creatures. There is some- 
thing within man that seeks after the things of the 
spirit, and that something is the spirit. It is not 
the flesh, for flesh seeketh only after the things of 
the flesh. There is something within man that 
seeketh after the unknown things of God, and that 
something is the spirit which is of God. As man 



212 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

realizes more fully what man is, as he understands 
that these longings are of the spirit and thai the 
spirit is of God, then will he realize that he should 
glisten to that voice and carefully and expectantly 
follow whithersoever it may lead. Cast away the 
old fear and prejudice and open your eyes and ears 
and examine the things that are, well knowing that 
God is "revealed in the things which he hath 
made,*' and that there you will find him. Fear not, 
but follow truth. Examine, test, try, prove. Use 
the reason that God gave you, instead of hiding it 
away and calling it '' human reason," fearing it will 
lead you astray. Without this gift, which the clergy 
are crying, out against, they might just as well 
preach to an idiot or a camel. A little plain com- 
mon sense tells a man that reason is for use, and, 
like all talents, is perfected by use. It was only the 
one who went off and hid his talent in the ground 
who had no more to offer than he had first received. 
Get rid of the notion that the questioning of men 
is the scheming of the devil, instead of the cry of 
the pent-up spirit for more light, and you will rec- 
ognize and receive help that has never before been 
yours. Instead of sajung, " Back ! get thee behind 
me, Satan !" every^time a thought comes to you that 
is not in keeping with long-accepted ideas, let it 
come out and tell its story. You need not fear that 
it will demolish the truth. Truth can never die ; 
and darkness manifested only makes the light seem 
brighter and more joyous. 

" But how do you know that man has something 
within him which is not possessed by other flesh ?*' 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 213 

asks someone ; and I reply by asking him what he 
thinks about it ; and he tells me that his believing 
it is no proof of its truth. All right ; I admit that 
it contains no direct proof whatever ; but the fact 
that among aU mankind, civilized and savage, this 
belief in immortality exists, is a queer coincidence 
if it is all a falsehood. But there is one thing that 
we can see with the limited vision which we possess 
that tells us that man has something in him differ- 
ent from what is in other creatures, and that is that 
which we see in his ability to develop, to improve 
himself. If man and beast are both bodily and 
spiritually alike, why don't beasts progress like 
men ? Why don't they civilize themselves and 
build houses and get an education? Man takes 
other animals and by cultivation improves them in 
small degree, but that does not extend far. But 
with them, their first state is the best they can do. 
The bear still remains a bear, and the dog a dog, 
and the monkey a monkey, although thousands of 
years have passed away since they not only lived, 
but had the example of man, if they have either 
the power to perceive it or the ability to imitate it. 
I have touched upon a matter upon which I did 
not propose to speak in this chapter, but life and 
immorality are so intimately connected that it is 
hard to keep them separate, even in argument, 
much more in fact. *^ But why is it that God made 
man this pigmy that he must have been, instead of 
making him good, wise, and powerful at first? 
Why all this suffering in the world ? Why sin, 
sickness and death ?" To these questions I will 



214 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. * 

candidly reply that I do not know ; but I will tell 
you some things that I think about the matter, and 
if they seem true to you, believe them. If they 
satisfy you, even in any degree, I shall be glad. In 
reply to the questions why God permits or causes 
that which is, I say it is either best that it should 
be so, or else God cannot help it. Many things that 
we complain of are undoubtedly for our good, and 
contribute to the upbuilding of the human race. 
Some things there are that come upon men which 
I cannot think are in accord with the wishes of God, 
and therefore I think he cannot prevent them. 
Now, I know that most church people will hold up 
their hands when I say I think there is a limit to 
the power of God ; but all good orthodox people 
who say that God cannot save all men because he 
cannot save a man against his will, limit the power 
of God a good deal more than I shall, and limit his 
wisdom and goodness also. For their proposition 
that God gave man the power of choice, made him 
a free agent, is simply and purely a subterfuge ; for, 
if all- wise, he knew what the result would be when 
he did it; and if all-good, as well as all- wise, he 
never would have given man the rope with which 
he knew he would hang himself ! They not only 
make God give away his own power, but throw 
away his wisdom and goodness with it. 

If we start at this point, from which we must 
start, that man commenced small and is growing 
large (spiritually), commenced low and is growing 
high, commenced weak and is growing strong, 
much of our trouble will be relieved. We then see 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 215 

that there is a purpose in all this, and that the pur- 
pose is being fulfilled ; and until we are pretty 
well informed we had better not repudiate the thing 
at the wholesale, as very likely there is a power in 
the matter beside which we are very small and in- 
significant. Question it we should; learn of it all 
we can ; try to find out about it. Very likely the 
trouble comes from misconception of our own, or 
rather from blindly accepting the conception of 
someone who did not know half as much as we 
ought to and as we should if we let reason do its 
perfect work, instead of bottling it up and hiding it 
in the dark. 

The ideas that we have of God are only the con- 
ceptions of men, built upon what they could see 
and reason, and mixed with ideas that they often 
accepted without reason ; and this is true of all 
things Avhicli cannot be mathematically demon- 
strated. A simple say so is not proof, and unless a 
man can demonstrate a thing either mathematically 
or logically or by showing unvarying results from 
certain causes or conditions, it is optional with us 
about accepting his ideas, as they are his, either 
real or facied, spiritual conceptions, and must be 
accepted or rejected as they seem reasonable or un- 
reasonable. It is my belief that the world is liter- 
ally groaning under the troubles brought upon man- 
kind by a false conception of what God, and man, is. 

Those who have read this book up to this point 
know my views in regard to the false conception of 
God held by Old Testament writers, and some of 
the woe that it has caused. The Egyptian idea of a 



216 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

scapegoat to carry off on his head the sins of the 
people was nonsensical, wasn't it? Yes, all say that 
was a very ioolish idea. ^ Now, I want to tell you 
that you cannot lay your sins on the head of a goat, 
or on the head of a man. They are on your own 
head, and there they will remain until you get rid 
of them by your own efforts, or the working of a 
positive and self-acting law. Jesus will not save 
you from the results of your sins, he can only save 
yoM from your sins — save you from sinning by show- 
ing you the evil of it. You cannot cure the burn on 
the child's hand by telling him the stove did it and 
3^ou will endure the pain, but you may teach him to 
keep from getting burned in the future. The people 
who think they can conform to rites and ceremonies 
and escape the natural results of their deeds, are 
altogether wrong, and he who thinks that prayer 
will take the place of bread is also wrong. If the 
people who fast and pray would go about their 
business and offer up the dollars that they earn that 
day, they would relieve a good deal more distress 
than can be relieved by long prayers and long faces. 
How much prayer it would require to be equal to a 
loaf of bread for the starving, I will leave for the 
reader to decide for himself, but God knows that 
were any of mine in a laud of destitution, I would 
give more to know that a five dollar note was on the 
way to him by express, than that the preacher and 
all the congregation were on their knees praying 
with all their might. 

Edward Bellamy believes in practical Christianity, 
but the churches do not. Christian creeds are, all of 



fiOW MAN ADYANCEB. 217 

them, theoretical Christianity, and Christian Social" 
ism would be practical Christianity. I do not say 
that the plan of Bellamy can, with success, be car- 
ried out in detail and with perfect results, or with 
results as perfect as he described, and I do not say 
they cannot be. The subject is open to debate and 
has a good deal in its favor. The most of the ob- 
jections come, not from logic or reason, but are 
grounded in selfishness. 

We must first decide as to the right of the thing, 
and then lay the plans for carrying it into effect. 
First find Avhat the disease is, and then apply the 
remedy. Bellamy recognizes the fact that man's 
condition is caused by man^ and that therefore the 
remed}' is with him also. 

The only true religion is the religion of doing 
good. The best direct definition of pure religion to 
be found in the Bible is in James i, 27 : " Pure re- 
ligion and undefiled before God and the father is 
this : To visit the fatherless and the widows in their 
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
world." Man progresses very slowly, and I think 
the fault has been largely with him. The world is 
not yet prepared for an abrupt change to Christian 
Socialism. Men must first get those old and mis- 
shapen ideas of God and duty out of their heads, 
and get them replaced by better and truer views, 
before they can enter into such a broad field of 
philantnropy successfully. 

When I look in men's faces I see that which tells 
me the time is not yet. They have been wrongly 
educated for too long a time to blossom out in a 



218 RELK^ION AND THE BIBLE. 

night into a '*rose of Sharon." Gradually the 
change will come, and, when the hour arrives, may 
each step be taken well and wisely and never be re- 
traced. 

After wandering about in this manner let us come 
back to the question of why God made man as he 
did. What do men mean by that question ? That, 
like many others, is based on a misconception. God 
has not got man made yet ! It was a great work 
and it is taking — what ? Shall I say a great deal of 
time ? 1 don't know that it is ; so far as we now 
know, it is taking only a lifetime, in the first state at 
least, and a lifetime is not very long, so most men 
testify, at any rate. The boy's school-days seem 
very long to him, but the rest of his days seem 
short. Men are only larger children going to a 
higher school, and this is but tlieir primary. Men 
make a mistake when they assume that man was 
made in a minute. Man is being made, is growing, 
day by day, and year by year, and if he used his 
time as he ought, and did not look backward instead 
, of forward, he would get on much faster. The cat- 
erpillar lives one life and then enters its chrysalis, 
and behold, he comes forth a butterfly, no longer 
crawls, but flies, no longer is confined to creeping 
about the earth, but rises in the air and flies hither 
and thither gathering from the flowers. And so 
man (phj^sical man) will one day enter the chrysalis 
— death — and the spirit will be free and will mount 
up into larger fields of usefulness, and more perfect 
and more beautiful realms on high. I do not think 
God could have made man at the beginning that 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 219 

which he will be in the end. Truly *' we know not 
what we shall be," but if we can look over the ages 
of the past, and over the world, and all that in it is, 
and can see a purpose and a carrying out, we may 
rest assured that all will yet be well, and that it is 
our duty, first, to see what it is that lue have left un- 
done, remembering that we must be co-workers in[ 
the up-building of the race. Perhaps I am wrong, 
but I cannot conceive how one could have realized 
joy if he had never known sorrow. One thing is 
sure, God did not make men so they could, and I do 
not think he could, or he would have done it. I 
cannot understand how one can appreciate anything^ 
if he has never known of the existence of anything 
less desirable. 

Tell me what light is, if there never has been 
darkness. If nothing but light had ever been 
known by you you would not know what was meant ; 
you would think the questioner was insane. Tell 
me, what is good, if there is nothing that is not so ? 
It would be both nameless and meaningless. These 
things, when rightly used, seem to be for the up- 
building of man. Many things have their use and 
abuse. Take care how you abuse good gifts. Again, 
I say, this life is not long, and if the experience 
of this life is of value to men throughout the 
never-ending time, it is surely time well spent, and 
if it rests with the world to make it much better in 
the future than it has been in the past, I have 
sometimes thought that many, yes, that all would 
be helped greatly if they had some idea of endless 
time. The man does not live who fully grasps and 



220 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

comprehends the vastness of the meaning of the 
term. We say " eternity." Yes, I know that it 
means never-ending time ; but we fail to grasp the 
subject. I heard a story once which came nearer 
conveying the meaning of endless time than any- 
thing else I ever heard ; the substance of which 
was, that if a bird came to this planet from some 
other realm, once in a thousand years, and carried 
away each time he came one grain of sand, that by 
the time he had carried away this entire earth 
eternity would have only just begun. Let us get a 
better idea of the meaning of eternity and try to 
measure our little earth-life by it, and then go 
about finding out how much trouble is in some way 
due to man (someone), and after we have fixed all 
of those things, we shall not have half so many 
things to complain of. The country boy trudges off 
to school through the blinding snow and bitter 
cold ; sometimes he freezes his ears and sometimes 
his toes ; sometimes he wallows through snow-drifts 
through which you cannot drive a horse, but he 
doesn't complain much. He is going to school. He 
is trying to get an education. He wants to be a 
man when he grows up, and so he keeps on and 
doesn't mind the cold and snow. Men are not 
always as consistent ; they want the school-house 
brought to them, and then want someone to learn 
their lessons for them. Take a lesson from the boy, 
and see if you cannot do better. Look the ground 
over and see if you have been taking the shortest 
cut and the easiest way. See if you cannot avoid 
some of the drifts and the slippery places and get 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 221 

in the lee of some friendly wood and get on better. 
See if you have not been following some old and 
tortuous Avay that has made you much needless 
trouble. See if some of tlie stones that some of 
those who once traveled this way put in the path 
long days ago for stepping-stones have not become 
stumbling-blocks instead. The boy thinks of these 
things, see if you cannot. Again, tliere are a good 
many things in the world that are hard and painful 
that are not in the least the fault, or from the fault 
of the individual who suffers, but come by the mis- 
deeds of others. I am not speaking of man individ- 
ually when I talk of these things, but collectively. 
Some things come upon men by the deeds of 
others, causing an affliction for which the recipient 
is in nowise to blame, but someone is to blame for it, 
and through the channel by which it came must 
we learn of the remedy to apply. First learn the 
cause and then you can find the cure. Some things 
come upon one by the deeds of others which I do 
not counsel any man to submit to. Use reason in 
the matter, but see to it that others use reason also. 
I do not tell you that all the selfish and inhuman 
things that one man may do to a hundred men is 
the chastening of the Lord. I believe that nearly 
all of these come from the abuse by men of their 
powers and privileges and a misconception of the 
things that be. I see the force and no small amount 
of truth when I think of the church with its teach- 
ings that all species of affliction are the results of 
sin or a chastening of the Lord, in the statement 
which Ignatius Donnelly puts in the mouth of one 



222 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

of his characters in '^ Caesar's Column " where he is 
addressing one of the cloth, who counsels submis- 
sion on that score and is met with the statement 
that "they have lulled them to sleep with promises 
of heaven while the robbers have plundered the 
world." (I find I have misquoted Donnelly, but as 
the meaning is the same I let the form of expression 
remain with this explanation.) My idea is that 
many of the troubles we have come to us through 
things for which the remedy is in man's hands, if 
he would only see it, and is, therefore, either 
directly or indirectly the result of ignorance, and 
that the church (all unconsciously, to be sure) has in 
the past done a good deal to keep him there by 
teaching false doctrines in the matter, compelling 
him to put away the faculty of reason (which God 
gave him for aid in this very matter) as a prompt- 
ing of the devil, and, under fear of hell, has made 
him accept the false teachings of men who were too 
conceited to be correct. The fact that there is an 
antidote for not only poison, but for nearly all 
poisons, that there are remedies which alleviate or 
cure a large part of the ills of the body, if used in 
season and with judgment, ought to tell men some- 
thing, ought to point the way. These things have 
been made possible by men beholding a condition 
that their natural perception told them was calling 
for relief, and setting themselves about the task of 
finding a cure. 

I believe that the evils of the world which are 
caused by the greed of one and the need of another 
will be remedied by the seeking out and 4he appli- 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 223 

cation of new principles of social science, just the 
same as is being done by medical science. The 
troupe is, we were not only born with our eyes 
shut, but, to many things, have persistently kept 
them shut ever since ; blindly accepting old cus- 
toms and old conditions without ever a thought as 
to whether they were best or not ; and when the 
question was raised by someone, we have sighed 
and said they always had been, and we thought they 
always would be so. 

We acknowledge the wrong of them and try by 
some petty patching to make some portion of it en- 
durable, instead of trying to go to the root of the 
matter, trying to learn if the trouble is not a funda- 
mental trouble, and that we must apply the remedy 
to the disease. Many men (and it is those who oft- 
times come nearest seeing that there is a funda- 
mental disease) do not want to say anything about 
it on account of their own selfishness, and will quote 
Jesus as telling men that they should, as a Christian 
duty, improve their talents ; which they assume to 
mean — put your money at interest, plan, and 
scheme, and get all you can ; absolutely reversing 
the true teaching to make it fit their desires, instead 
of regarding the talents as spiritual gifts, which it is 
their duty to exercise, "and which they hide away at 
their peril. And this solely on account of their 
own greed, which makes them seek for something to 
bolster up what in their inmost consciousness they 
must know to be wrong. Such men seek out some 
passages of scripture which they can have to call up 
and quiet any conscience that they may have come up 



>'d 



224 BELIGlON AND THE BIBLE. 

to trouble them, and say they are Christians and be- 
lieve the Bible ; and when you quote such passages 
as Luke xii, 33, 34 : '' Sell that ye have, and- give 
alms, provide yourselves bags which wax not old, 
a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no 
thief approacheth, neither corrupteth. For where 
your treasure is, there will your heart be also," they 
tell you that that was to apply to someone else who 
lived a long time ago, and that the allusions to wealth 
in passages they mention were intended to apply to 
them and note, I wonder how they know ! The answer 
is not far to seek: That which the heart seeketh it 
findeth. 

The teaching which a man desires to find in the 
Bible he brings tvith him, and then says he ^nds it 
there. Take care, ye who seek a God according to 
your desires, who build magnificent churches, who 
dress extravagantly, who own fine horses and fine 
carriages, pleasure yachts, and palatial residences; 
ye who hold up your heads and disdain to associate 
with those who are your superiors in all save out- 
ward show; who send money to foreign lands to 
save men from things you know not of, while within 
the sound of your own church bell, as you bow in 
prayer and tell God how much you love him, there 
are helpless children crying for bread, and mothers 
suffering from physical disease and mental agony 
that you could well relieve ; while others are coming 
up in ignorance and vice to m^jltiply both mental 
darkness and physical weakness among mankind. 
Christianity, so-called, is taking on too much of 
formalism. You go iu the door and turn there, step 



■-^V^-pk"' 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 225 

np a step here, and face about, cross yourself, con- 
fess, pray, and pay — don't forget to pay — and you 
get your ticket duly signed by priest or preacher. 
That is, you get to thinking you have fulfilled the 
requirements and made your " calling and election 
sure." When men or women hold up their heads,- 
turn up their noses, and look down upon their fellow- 
men and fellow-women because of worldly wealth 
and position, they are not Christians. The spirit is 
not leading them, but the flesh, and though they 
build churches whose spires reach the clouds, and 
though they erect shrines of jasper in temples of 
gold, and do not labor for the up-building and up- 
lifting of man, they do not serve God truly, for man 
can serve God only by serving man. 

James Eussell Lowell saw with a clear vision 
when he wrote : 

" With gates of silver and bars of gold 
Te have fenced my sheep from my father's fold. 
I have heard the dropping of their tears 
In heaven this eighteen hundred years. 
O Lord and master, not ours the guilt. 
We built but as our father's built. 
Behold thine images, how they stand, 
Sovereign and sole throughout the land. 
Then Christ led forth an artisan, 
A low-browed, stunted, haggard man. 
And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin. 
Pushed from her feebly want and sin. 
These set he in the midst of them. 
And as they drew back their garment's hem. 



:^^:; 



226 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

For fear of defilement, ^ Lo, here,' said lie, 
* The images ye have made of me.' " 

Living wrongly, advancing backwards, again as 
usual. Adopting the proposition that, to serve God, 
is serving man, when you should recognize that serv- 
ing man is serving God. It is easy to see how to 
serve God by ministering unto the necessities of his 
children, but hard to see how you serve man by 
ministering unto supposed needs and requirements 
of God. You can make no mistake if you serve God 
by serving man. You will make many if you try to 
serve man by serving God, as the history of the 
God-servers (as they thought they were) of the past 
plainly shows. You pray to God to help you " to 
love him more and serve him better every day," and 
somehow you have it in your head that to do that 
is to go to church and pray and sing, and tell God 
how you love him — to '* mortify the flesh " to say, 
''get thee behind me, Satan," when you think there 
are things in the Bible that are not true. To accept 
all the old established dogmas of the past, and look 
for no further light in the future ; to follow in the 
steps of modern formalism, the same as the Jews of 
old followed in the steps of ancient formalism, be- 
lieving (and you believe it if you believe the Bible) 
that they were serving God by offering sacrifices 
and burnt offerings, by burning incense, by feasts, 
and by fasts, while their neighbor was only he who 
was of their own faith, and the wounded was left to 
perish by the way, if he fell not into the hands of 
some " good Samaritan " who was without the pale 
of Judaism, and who served God by serving his 



HOW MAN ADVANCED. 227 

fellow-man. You do not want to'* build but as your 
fathers built," you must build better, and better, 
and better, as time goes on. 

This building, as in tlie days of old, tins eternally 
looking into the past for perfection, is at the bottom 
of mountains of tribulation and pain, and stales of 
woe unnumbered and unnamed. All the sin there 
is consists in doing that which brings harm to your- 
self or someone else. Everyone has knowledge 
within himself that will answer all and better pur- 
poses than written dissertations, and is always under- 
stood — Do as you luould he done by. Sickness almost, 
if not wholly, comes from the breaking of law, and 
must be remedied by ceasing to break it. Animals, 
in their natural state, have few ills of the flesh ; why 
need man ? 

Death is not an enemy, but a friend. It is only 
the stepping-stone to more perfect life. It is only a 
promotion. It is only the chrysalis into which en- 
ters the caterpillar, only to come out into a better 
and higher existence. It is not well to take one's 
own life, because you are thereby interfering with a 
law, breaking a law, and obedience to, and not break- 
ing of law, brings the best results. Death is the 
fulfillment of a physical law by which the soul is 
freed from the flesh, and the days of physical life 
are all needed to prepare for the entering into the 
higher life. He who makes poor use of his time 
here will not be as well fitted for the change as he 
who makes good use of it, any more than the child 
in the primary will be as well fitted for higher 
classes if he makes poor use of his advantages. 



228 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

There are some things for which I can conceivp no 
use proportionate to the harm received, and that 
man is in no way responsible for. I refer to those 
things that come in obedience to natural law, such 
as famines and earthquakes. Good, unbiased, com- 
mon sense tells a man that those things come alike 
upon the just and the unjust, and it seems to me 
that a good and kind God would not so afflict men 
if he could do otherwise. It seems to me that those 
things come about in the operation of a law that 
knows no friends and no enemies. I do not think 
this law is vindictive, and I see no evidence that it 
is kind. It seems to me to act independently and 
regardless of man. I do not forget that I am but 
a man, and one, I hope, with much to learn. In 
some way, beyond the present range of the vision 
of man, there may be a good commensurate with 
what now seems objectless. If, for the next few 
hundred years, men would study and try to learn of 
these things, perhaps they could then show the wis- 
dom of them. They seem to come in obedience to 
a general — a universal — law that takes no cogni- 
zance of special, fragmentary, or incidental results. 
Knowing no special providence, no individual con- 
venience, it pursues its unchanging course and bids 
all who are jostled stand aside or adjust themselves 
to the conditions. It is no use for any to express 
horror to me at the thought of man trying to find 
out what they may be pleased to call the deep 
things of God, as though they thought man would 
be punished for some heinous offense, which they 
can imagine, but cannot name, for it is my belief 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 229 

that, instead of God condemning a man for trying 
to know more of him, and the laws to which man 
is subject, man will greatly profit thereby, and 
that he has been hiding his head instead of doing 
his duty ; that this, like the contemplation of all 
law, is for the up-building of man, and that he who 
dares not examine and try to learn more of these 
things is less distinguished for real manhood than 
he is for moral cowardice. 

After this imperfect discussion of man and how 
he progresses, let me say that I trust it will not be 
found void of ideas, and that the reader will find 
something that is either of itself directly helpful, 
or that v/ill stimulate the mind to new thoughts and 
new conceptions that may be productive of much 
good. 

As one view of man's life and destiny, let us stand 
and, as it were, behold a weary wayfarer journeying 
on across the earth, his way beset with thorns, and, 
as he toils on through the rugged way, his feet all 
bare and sore by many stones left not unpressed ; 
his garments tattered and his body weak from days 
on days of insufficient food ; now on through pes- 
tilential swamps, whose very odors breed disease 
and fever in his weakened frame ; whose waters, so 
impure, seem but a mockery to his parched tongue ; 
whose dews by night and torrid sun by day add to 
the terrors of his troubled way. But one bright 
star, high in the heavens there, holds e'er his gaze, 
nor bids him tarry there. A faith within assures 
him he is right, and bids him toil on ever through 
the night. Lo, in the east the first faint signs of 



230 KELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

dawn appear. On up the rugged steep he toils with 
quickened breath, scarce by both strength and will 
combined he drags his weary limbs, but now, at last, 
the mountain top is reached, and what a change ! 
The morning sun, in all its splendor, throws its rays 
on crag and tree ; the air is pure and clear as crys- 
tal, and at his feet gush forth the sparkling waters 
for which his parched tongue so long has waited. 
Falling on his knees he takes a long deep draught. 
O heaven ! was ever sweeter morsel placed to lips 
than that of which he freely takes his fill ? Rising, 
his wonder hightens. Beautiful trees, bowed down 
with luscious fruit, stand close about him, while 
fields of waving grain, now distant, come in view. 
But who is this approaching with smiles of greeting, 
and, with outstretched hands, bidding him welcome 
home ? Though long they'd looked, they knew full 
well he'd come. In them he recognizes friends and 
dear ones, who long ago went out into the night, and 
now he knows the toils and strifes of years are 
ended. How glorious is all around ; the balmy air 
just tempered by the morning sun ; the water and 
the food, how precious to his famished frame ! 
Health, happiness, and peace are beaming all around, 
and now he thanks almighty God for all these prec- 
ious gifts — proved precious by his trials. One mo- 
ment now his gaze he turns on o'er the way that 
led him thither. There come before him all the 
weary days of toil and pain, the hunger and the 
thirst, when, troubled and alone, he wandered o'er 
the way, sometimes, perchance, nigh doubting of the 
end. And then, with fervent voice and hands up- 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 231 

raised, lie thanks the God that made him, and who 
gave all that he now enjoys — more precious far, a 
thousand times, than had he ne'er crossed that des- 
ert, and ne'er had known the famine and the pain. 
And now, comparing time, he sees they were but a 
moment in his true life, for here he is to dwell for- 
ever. Endless time, compared to which his life of toil 
was not as much as one short minute to a thousand 
years ! And if, in that short space, he found the 
value of all things to be desired, and has been 
taught appreciation of God's best gifts to men, well 
may he be content. 

This view is not without some truth. Thef'e 
is more or less good in it, but we must remember 
that it is the perfect use that brings the good re- 
sults and the imperfect that brings the evil. Right 
use is well, wrong use is ill. Good food and pure 
water are good for man and beast when proper use 
is made of them, but wrong, ill-advised and exces- 
sive use will produce disease. A certain amount of 
food is necessary, but suppose you double and mul- 
tiply the quantity and perhaps give no heed to the 
quality until it distresses the child, and he com- 
plains bitterly, and instead of a more rational treat- 
ment, you tell him to endure it, only endure it, and 
then by and by, year after next, when he gets where 
he can't get what now hurts him, he will feel so 
nice that he will be real glad he w^as abused. And 
all the while you are very carefullw dieting your- 
self and selecting an abundance of the things w^hich 
you can use for your present comfort and pleasure. 
You don't seem to want any of these precious things 



N ^v 



232 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

that will bring such good results to someone else ; 
and 3'ou won't have them if you can help it, either. 
The carrying of this idea to extremes and glorifying 
in tribulation and telling some poor afflicted soul 
that '' whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth " and 
to *' despise not the chastening of the Lord ;" that 
his hardships will all be rewarded and that he will 
receive a joy for every pain ; that though the rich 
get the lion's share in this world, they will have to 
take a back seat in the great beyond and the poor and 
downtrodden willcome into his inheritance is wrong; 
and all the wliile greed stands rubbing his hands and 
winking slyly, as he sees men stealing the livery of 
heaven to serve the cause of evil, well knowing that 
in the past they have '' lulled them to sleep with 
promises of heaven while the robbers have plun- 
dered the world," and trust they may do it again ; 
in one breath telling them it must be so or- 
dered that men were so unlike, and share so un- 
equally in the good and comfortable things of this 
world and in the next, that they would be happier 
and more blessed in the next world because they 
had been robbed in this. Nonsense, I say, nonsense ! 
Instead of contentedly sneaking off with the plun- 
der under your arm and the cheering message flung 
back to your less fortunate brother, that he will be 
happier by and b}^ no matter if he does get hungry 
and his wife work herself to death and his children 
go to the poorhouse, it is only fitting them to enjoy 
themselves, suppose you recognize the fact that 
all inequalities between men are but the fruits of 
just such seeds as you are sowing, and say that it is 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 233 

unjust and you won't do so any longer ; that you all 
sprang from the same source and that that poor 
dwarfed specimen of a man by your side is what 
conditions adverse to his development have made 
him ; and that we are all of one family, all of one 
crew of the same bark tossed about on the sea of 
life, and instead of pursuing a system that permits 
one to reap the fruits of the labors of many, and tell- 
ing them it is best for them that it should be so, and 
asking them to look up with gratitude and acknowl- 
edge your claim to honor when you give back a 
tenth of what you never should have had ; set your- 
self, like a man, about the task of finding a wslj to' 
change a condition that is so palpably unjust and 
unchristlike. 

"But how can I?" you ask. "And why don't 
someone else find a way?" How can a man volun- 
tarily do that which he does not want to do ? You 
who stand there and say " can't,'* not only will not 
do it, but you will not see it when it is done, ancj 
will not recognize a feasible plan when presented, 
because you are in the position of the man that 
thinks he won't fare as well then as he does now. 
In other words, the sum and substance of the whole 
thing is selfishness ; and with his eyes blinded by 
gain, he sighs and says he thinks it will always be 
so — and pockets the cash. The belief that one man 
is truly entitled to a million if he can get it on ac- 
count of his " superior ability," though in the getting 
he has to reap the fruits of the labors of a thousand 
men, is the same contemptible old cry of might is 
right. Let the strong prey upon the weak and take 



234 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

from them by physical force whatever they have that 
is desirable. Why not? Isn't it just as noble and as 
just as it is to take it by mental force? Is it less 
criminal to rob in the dark than in the light of day ? 
less wrong to do it by brain or shrewdness than by 
muscular power ? Would you cheat a blind man ? 
No, you say you wouldn't ; and you wouldn't rob a 
cripple. Well, is it right to go into the house of a 
man who is in the full possession of his bodily 
strength — only he is not as strong as you are — and 
take away his goods ; and you stand on your dig- 
nity and tell me you are not a thief and that any 
man that would do that should be arrested and 
made to return what he has stolen, and that if it 
took place in a country where there is no law 
against it, then they ought to pass one at once ? 
Well, but you don't seem to know, I say, that 
they have always done that way in that coun- 
try and so. probably always will, and that it is no 
.doubt right, or it never would have been so. If it 
had not been right, all men would have been of 
equal strength, so that one could not get the better 
of another and go in and appropriate the results of 
his labors ; and you tell me I am a fool to talk like 
that, but when it comes to doing the same thing 
by the possessor of a greater amount of another 
kind of strength, you say, Oh, yes, that is all right, 
men are not all equal and not all alike ; you don't 
think they ever have been or ever will be, and com- 
placently say ^*it is all right." To me it seems just 
as sure that the time will come when there will be 
laws to prevent and punish for mental robbery as it 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 235 

is that there now exist laws to prevent and punish 
physical robbery ; and that when men cease to look 
back to the laws and customs of a dark and imper- 
fect past for the laws of light and perfection the day 
will have dawned. " But," says one, '* is there not a 
difference in the motive ? Is the motive the same 
in the man who gets by mental power as it is in the 
man who gets by physical power ?" In one sense it 
is, and in another it is not. The motive is to ejet 
that which you desire, which we call money. The 
difference in the motive in the two cases is that in 
the one case it is stamped with the disapproval of 
public sentiment or opinion, and in the other you 
accomplish the same result by a method that is not 
condemned by the same sentiment or opinion. The 
difference, then, is wholly a matter of method — the 
result is the same. Now, is the real issue in this 
matter the method by which you operate, or the 
result which you obtain? Is the real question 
simply the way in which you proceed to get what 
another possesses, or that you get it at all? *'But 
the one who is taking advantage of his superior 
ability to acquire property and increase his posses- 
sions does not feel that he is doing wrong, while the 
simply physical thief knoivs he is doing wrong, and 
is therefore guilty, while the other is not." Now 
you are a little too fast, my friend. They are both 
guilty of doing a wrong ; only one of them, as you 
say, knows it, and it may be that the other does not 
know it ; but ignorance does not make it right. If 
you think you have a right to do a thing which in- 
jures your fellow-men while it may result to your 



236 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

own pecuniary advantage, your thinking so does 
not make it so, does it? If a person tells me that 
he never did anything that he was ashamed of, the 
principal knowledge I get from such a statement is 
that there is doubtless a good deal of difference in 
men about what they are ashamed of, and not that 
he never did anything that was shameful. The fact 
that public opinion permits, and our social sys- 
tem almost compels, men to take from the labors of 
others by superior mental force when they would 
scorn to obtain the same result by physical force, 
cannot be counted good on account of the man 
thinking that he has a right to do so, and therefore 
may even be said to do it conscientiously, without 
claiming that whatever a man thinks is right is 
right, because he so regards it. A man may not 
do a thing viciously, and may not think to do harm, 
but he may nevertheless, in a careless, thoughtless 
way, and perhaps too, in following in the steps of 
long-established custom, do that which results in 
great harm to numbers of his race. Do not misun- 
derstand me in this matter ; I do not say that this 
man who thinks no harm commits a grievous sin, 
or that he commits sin at all, but that he does that 
which is evil, that which it is not good to do, and is 
therefore doing wrong. I am not making a distinc- 
tion without a difference, as I will clearly show you. 
There is, according to my conception, a vast differ- 
ence between evil and sin. 

Sin is knowingly, maliciously, and intentionally 
doing wrong ; and evil is doing without malice, with- 
out intent, without knowing it to be wrong, that 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 237 

which is wrong and brings an evil result to some- 
one as a direct consequence of the act. The differ- 
ence is very plain. One is with malice, and the 
other is unintentional. I do not condemn the men 
who are unthinkingly committing what I might term 
legalized robbery, but I condemn the system and 
the conception that regards it as just and right, and 
ask men to see and recognize the fact that it is ud- 
just and wrong and ought to be done away with. 
When men will admit that, then the first ditch is 
past — the first line of defense carried — and we are 
met by a somewhat shamefaced line of defenders, 
who apologetically say, "It doesn't seem right, but it 
has always been so, and I don't see how we are go- 
ing to make it any different, do you ?" The fact 
that it is not right, alone, tells me that it can and will 
be made different. Nothing that is right shall be 
beyond the attainments of man. Chewing your 
thumb, like a school-boy in the sulks, won't bring it. 
Saying I can't won't hasten the day, but seeing the 
wrong, and believing in the infinite possibilities of 
man, if you rise up in the strength that is in you 
and say, We will try, and, by the heavens above us, 
we will never cease trying until we reach the goal, 
then will the day surely dawn upon the sons of men. 
For, as sure as God lives, just so sure is it that no 
good thing shall be withheld from those that per- 
sistently, and with oneness of heart, seek therefor. 
"But what do you mean," I hear you ask, "by draw- 
ing such a picture as the one of the traveler who 
found such hallowed rest and peace and joy awaiting 
to reward him for his trials, sorrows, privations, and 



238 RELIGION AKB THE BIBLE. 

toils, and tlien telling us it is all wrong ?" The nrst 
is a picture of faith, mingled with credulity — blind 
belief; and blind belief is just as sure to err as 
"blind unbelief" (if there could be such a thing). 
I do not say the first is all wrong ; it is not all wrong, 
but it is, it seems to me, greatly in error. 

Who is there that does not instantly recognize the 
fact that the moment the thoughts of the traveler 
turned to those he had left behind, and who must 
follow in their turn the thorny path that he had 
trod, he would desire to send them word to avoid 
this, and shun that, and keep to the right of this 
swamp, and to the left of those sharp stones and 
tangled wood ; and he would sigh and say, " Oh, if 
only I could cause one of these springs of pure wa- 
ter to gush forth in that dreary desert, and could 
send the wind of heaven into that pestilential val- 
ley to carry off those dread vapors ! ' He would not 
think there was any danger of making the way so 
pleasant that they would not enjoy something better 
when they got to it. The view of the matter con- 
tained in the picture of the traveler is much better 
than orthodoxy, much better than thinking these 
things are hard and cruel punishments from the 
father of all for some waywardness of his children, 
or that they come as the result of some primal sin 
committed by the first pair; and at one time I 
thought it might be true, but the more I thought 
of it the more I saw that there were things that 
brought trials and woe to some men, while others, 
in similar conditions of mind on matters of religion, 
and leading similar lives, fared very differently, and 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 239 

the nonsensical notion that these things seemed so, 
but were not so, and that one of the men was to 
blame even though we didn't know it, had no charms 
for my reason, and I saw that many of these came 
through man — were evils of his own creation, and 
ought not to be. When I see some men able to 
provide themselves and families with the good 
things of life, and I see them prosperous and happy 
and developing into what seems good that men 
should be, I say all men should be like unto it, and 
that they can be. My idea is that, in this journey 
of life, the trials and hardships are fundamentally 
the fault of man, and that he has within him the 
power to correct them ; that it must be done in 
that way, and cannot be done in any other. Reason 
and experience should have taught man this long 
ago, and would have so taught him if he had not 
had a wrong idea of God and man. A wrong idea 
of man's past, his present, and his future. He 
would have then set himself about working out his 
own salvation, instead of waiting for a life he knows 
naught of to set at rights the evils of a life the mak- 
ing of which is in his own hands, and the trials of 
which, come mainly through his own ignorance, 
blindness, perversity, and misconceptions. All else 
there is in the world that seem as though they 
ought not to be, are either best, or God cannot help 
them, and very likely both propositions are true. I 
have said I could see no good to come from famine 
and earthquakes commensurate with the evil which 
they bring to man, but we have never 3'et had a 
famine that could not be relieved by man if he saw 



240 KELIGION AND THE BI LS. 

fit to do it, and lie had better set himself aboui it 
before he complains too much of God. It seems to 
me that there are a good many things which are 
done and can be done only through man. Call it 
God, if you will, but man must be the instrument. 
1 do not think that famines were gotten up to teach 
men benevolence and brotherhood, but they do 
serve in the upbuilding of the realization of those 
duties of man to man. Earthquakes do damage to 
life and property, but whether they are in a,uj great 
degree needful or needless in the conduct of the 
universe, I have no knowledge, and am not there- 
fore competent to judge of them ; but reason tells 
me to keep away from them and I won't get hurt. 

Why is it that men tell me that childhood and 
youth are the happiest of the days of man? They 
look upon children in the enjoyment of the things 
of childhood and say,/' I love to see the children, 
they are so happy, so joyous. Don't disturb them, 
let them enjoy life while they can ; they will come 
to the * realities' of life soon enough." They tell 
me that years alwaj^s bring their cares with them, 
and that when childhood's sun sets, manhood's rises 
in a cloud. They regard it as a natural part of the 
life of man that he should find care and sorrow mul- 
tiplied, and that the flowers of gladness should 
wither and die. More than that, it seems to be an 
actual fact that the people who are the lowest down 
in the scale of humanity are the most cheerful and 
the most happy. Look at the negro — see him in the 
various positions and conditions iu which he is to 
be fouiid, or iu which he has been. 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 241 

Men tell me that with the slaves, after their la- 
bors in the field under their master's lash, their 
troubles would vanish with their toil, and they 
would gather together and break forth in some old 
plantation melody, and, strange as it may seem, were 
as happy in a moment as their masters. See them 
coming together to attend one of their tent-meetings ; 
male and female, ages various and dress the same ; 
money enough to get where they are going, and 
probably enough to get back with, and the happiest 
crowd of mortals that I ever saw. What do they care 
about the style of their hats or cut of their coats ? 
Some' of them have left their positions without per- 
mission and do not know w^hat will be the result 
when they return, but they are happy just the same. 
White men look at them in wonder, and though they 
do not envy them their condition, they may well 
envy them their joy. I tell you there is something 
wrong here. When you see men growing less 
happy, when you hear men tell you that their chil- 
dren are happy, but that in a short time, as soon as 
years add to their knowledge and understanding, 
they will lose the joy of the morning of life and be- 
come like them — less joyous — I say there is some- 
thing wrong here. If man is climbing higher and 
higher, becoming better and wiser, getting nearer 
and nearer the goal of ideal existence, this advance 
should be all along the line ; it should permeate all 
things. One part should not grow while the other 
withers away, or the tree will be lop-sided and fall 
of its own weight, or be prostrated by tlie storms of 
life and lie a ruin of what it mi<>ht have been. 



242 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

The lives of men should not grow sad and gloomy ; 
it is not in keeping with the idea of true progress, 
of improvement, of evolution. It is not approach- 
ing toward an ideal existence, but in that particular 
is going in the other direction ; and that is not 
right. 

Forward, all ! is the watchword, and not, Forward 
one and back the other. Do not ask me the short- 
sighted question, If I would have men hold to the 
pleasures of a condition of lifa that is not desirable 
by men in a more advanced state of existence ; for 
I shall tell you to *'' prove all things and hold fast 
that which is good." The real point is rfot in 
holding to specific pleasures of the past, but of car- 
rying those pleasures on with you in the march of 
improvement, and making them better, more perfect, 
and at the same time more pleasant, instead of per- 
mitting the gloom to gather and the clouds to form 
over them until they are at last deluged in a shower 
of tears and die the death of what you regard as 
destiny, when they are only dying of neglect and 
misconception. These things are not ordered b}^ 
God, but are created by man. They are not essen- 
tial and real conditions of necessity, but unneces- 
sary and fictitious creations of the mind of man. A 
false idea, accepted by a man as true, has the same 
effect upon him as though it were as true as truth 
itseW. We are, in many things, following blind 
guides, and you know what the result of that will 
be. ''When the blind lead the blind they both 
fall in the ditch." 

The lives of men should grow more pleasant as 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 243 

time goes on. Correspondence with and the fulfill- 
ment of all law brings results good and profitable 
unto men. It is the reverse action, the acting out 
of harmony, the opposition to law, that brings bad 
results. If men are making the best of nature, the 
best of the world and all that in it is, the best of 
their own lives, they should be growing more happy 
insiead of less so ; and when anyone tells me that 
it is the result of arriving at a condition of under- 
standing which leads to gloom, i think there must 
be something which we understand wrongly, some- 
thing that we think is knowledge that is not knowl- 
edge at all, or else we have left some important 
branch of knowledge in the background. Natural 
things are not to be cai:elessly thrown away — and 
you do it at your peril, no matter what it is — but 
developed, enlarged, and improved. The time was 
when the man who had the longest face, who ut- 
tered the most groans and heaved the most sighs, 
was thought to be the most truly religious, and to 
live the nearest to God. For how many hundreds 
of years has that notion prevailed ! And the peo- 
ple now are waking from it as from a nightmare. 
The time will come when our lives to-day will seem 
as barren to the people then dwelling upon the 
earth as a desert when compared to the valley of 
the Nile. 

When the^day dawns in which men place the Eden 
in the future and the darkness in the past (where 
they are) and turn and earnestly press forward to 
the light; when they study all things that come in 

accordance with nature, or law, expecting that their 

4 



244 RELiaiOl^ AND THE BIBLE. 

right use and right application will be good, and their 
wrong use and wrong application evil ; when thej 
learn that the trouble is not that there is a devil 
who is bringing them all manner of evil, but that 
the evils that they endure come through their own 
blindness, their own ignorance and misconceptions, 
then it would indeed be a pleasure to live upon the 
earth. How long man has lived upon the earth I 
do not know, but the road which he has traveled is 
very plain. In addition to what has already been 
said of the antiquity of man, as shown by the age 
of the civilizations of Egypt and Persia, I quote from 
" A Brief History of Culture," by John S. Hittell, 
as follows: ''High geological authority tells us 
that man has lived on the earth at least one hun- 
dred thousand years. A rude picture of a hairy 
mammoth on a piece of fossil ivory, found at Made- 
laine, France, in 1864, was evidently drawn by a 
man contemporary with the animal. Men inhabited 
the valley of the Rhone in the latter part of the 
glacial epoch. They made their homes in Den- 
mark in districts covered with fir-trees, which dis- 
appeared and were succeeded by oaks, which in 
turn disappeared and are now replaced by beech- 
trees. At New Orleans a human skeleton was 
found, covered by the remains of four success- 
ive cypress - forests, each of which had died 
out, the earliest more than fifty thousand years 
ago. Borings in the lower part of the valley 
of the Nile have shown that more than sixty 
feet in vertical depth of the bottom land have 
been deposited by the river, and pieces of the pot- 



HOW MAN ADVANCES. 245 

tery brought up from that depth must have been 
made more than twelve thousand years ago. Some 
of the pile-dwellings in the lakes of Switzerland 
must have been built at least eight thousand years 
ago." I lately came upon a document (tract) set- 
ting forth the wickedness of the world at the pres- 
ent time, and citing all the murders of the present 
day, and all the lying, cheating, and defrauding that 
exists, as well as all the base things of which the 
like might be found in the criminal records of the 
world, to prove that the human race was continually 
and positively on the retrograde, continually grow- 
ing worse and more corrupt. The claim would be 
too absurd to notice if it was not that it is believed 
by not a few people of to-day. I will not take time 
and space to quote the deeds of man in the days of 
old, but he who will read the history of the race, 
who will read the history of primeval man and 
primitive life and superstition, going back to the 
savage and tracing along up to the present day, will 
never make the claim that the evil in the world is 
unparalleled, or that man is growing worse instead 
of better, if he is honest. Such a theory is inex- 
cusable ignorance in a man who pretends to write for 
the education and aid of mankind. Of what man's 
origin was we can speak with no exactitude, but 
that he has come toiling up from ignorance and 
superstition, through cannibalism, torture, and hu- 
man sacrifice, is proven upon every hand. Igno- 
rance was his, but wisdom shall be. False teach- 
ings were his, but truth shall be known. Darkness 
was his, but light shall come. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Why Do Men Cling to the Bible? 

Why do men clijig to tlie Bible ? Why do men 
cling to all things of the past, whether they are of 
the Bible or not of the Bible ? Why in this age of 
the world do the Chinese still worship their ances- 
tors ? Why does the black man in a far-away land 
st^ X concoct his prescription of mashed spiders as a 
cure for the man who he says is bewitched ? Why 
is it that the signs of the zodiac are still in our 
almanacs, and a good many people have in some de- 
gree faith in their utility ? Why does the -man se- 
lect a day for fishing when he thinks the signs are 
right? Why do some people wean a child when 
the sign is in the legs? Why is it no uncommon 
thing for a bride to think it will bring her good 
fortune to wear on her wedding day something old, 
something new, something borrowed, and some- 
thing blue ? Or, if she cannot truly be said to be- 
lieve this, she has some feeling that bids her do it, 
which is probably the remnant of more definite and 
stronger belief of ages past, of which her feelings 
are the last lingering rays and superstition ? The 
why of those things are shown in the reason why 
the man, in driving his cow to pasture, always drove 
her around a certain old pine stump; which was 



WHY DO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE? 247 

because his father always did it, because he 
thoui^ht it made her give more milk, and so he did 
it. Or the man that went to mill with a stone in 
one end of the bag and his grain in the other to 
balance it across the back of his horse. Neither of 
them did it as a result of any process of reasoning 
that told him how it was that it was a desirable 
thing to do. 

The present belief in past misconceptions and 
' follies came in obedience to custom, to clinging to 
the past with a feeling containing about equal parts 
of reverence and superstition, with the groundwork 
composed of the latter. I can understand how this 
first came about only by seeing that the first relig- 
ious promptings (if I may so call them) were from 
fear, which led men to make offerings and sacrifices, 
and do many strange and foolish things-to propi- 
tiate the powers whose anger they conceived liad 
caused their troubles. This caused the future to 
be filled only with dread and forebodings, and 
erected of necessity, or naturally, in the past, those 
things which they regarded as stable, and caused 
them to reverence both the age and the people 
whence these customs and teachings came. Magni- 
fying the idea, they placed their Eden in the past, 
before, as they conceived, their then-present condi- 
tion existed, and so established a past-worship, or 
what had been so near to it that the things of the 
past have been clung to more on account of whence 
they came than what they are. It has rever- 
enced age instead of truth under the false assump- 
tion that ap;e luas truth. 



248 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

The test has not been quality, but age and au- 
thority, and age has been accepted as authority. 
Men's notions have been accepted as revelations, 
and revelation has been accepted as unmixed and 
perfect truth from an all-wise and all-powerful God, 
especially sent to some particular individual for a 
specific purpose. And as this wrong view is the 
reason of this clinging to superstition, which in- 
cludes the belief that the Bible is the word of God, 
which is as unfounded as any other superstition, so 
I might, as a sequel to this chapter, ask. Why is the 
authority of the Bible waning? and cite the very 
same things that I have already cited, and say it was 
waning like all unfounded and imperfect theories 
of the past, because of growth, that all-pervading 
law, that slowly but surely, despite all the stum- 
blingblocks which man has thrown in the way, has 
forced him on by the landmarks of the past where 
he had thought to stay forever, and brought him 
through countless heresies and reformations to his 
present state of advancement. A few days ago the 
Presbyterian -assembly very properly decided that 
the Kev. Dr. Briggs taught that which was not in 
accordance with the creed of the church to which 
he had subscribed and of which he was supposed 
to be a pillar and an exponent. I say '* properly " 
because I do not think there can be any^loubt that 
the belief of Dr. Briggs had become contrary to the 
teachings of tlie clinrch of which he was a minister, 
and contrary, doubtless, to his own views when he 
became a member of the same. I am glad that Dr. 
Briggs does not believe that the Bible is the word 



WHY DO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE ? 249 

of God. I am glad that he does not believe in in- 
fant damnation, or that the everlasting torments of 
hell await all who pass from this earthly existence 
without accepting Christianity ; but I am sorry 
that he tried^to make it out that those views w^ere 
in accord with the teachings of the Presbyterian 
church, for it seems to me that it plainly was not so. 
I am glad Dr. Briggs had the courage to state his 
conscientious belief, but sorry he did not say to the 
Presbyterian church, ** Those are my views, gentle- 
men, that I believe before God to be the truth, and 
I will teach no other. If they are not in accord wdth 
Presbyterianism, then I am no longer a Presbyte- 
rian." But I suppose he could not do so. He clung 
to the past. He fought to make it appear that new 
and opposite conceptions of the present did not put 
him in rebellion against the past. He fought to 
maintain a union with the church whose creed he 
had antagonized. He had a new light, but he 
thought it could wed with darkness and be happy. 
Somehow he wanted to make it appear that this 
light w^as in accordance with, or not directly op- 
posed to, darkness. I think, however, that great 
good wall come from the attention that has been 
called to this matter by the prolonged battle finally 
terminating in the teacjiings of this man being pro- 
nounced heretical. 

These questions have been brought before many 
minds w4io will not again let them rest until they 
have souglit the truth and found it. All the dif- 
ference there will probably be between the old-time 
Presbyterians and the devout believer in universal 



>t'^ 



250 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

salvation in regard to the primal cause of this so- 
called heresy is that the partialist will regard it as 
the work of the devil, and the Universalists will 
see in it the hand of God. 

There is a great mistake somewhere isn't there ? 
Sometime ^ince I read a Philadelphia item setting 
forth that Kev. Dr. Dickey, one of the best-known 
Presbyterian preachers of this city, had astonished 
the Philadelphia Presbytery by his argument 
upholding the old creed of infant damnation. 
He declares that if the Presbytery were to strike 
that clause from the creed, and accept the doc- 
trine that infants who died before being baptized 
are saved, mothers would be justified in killing their 
babies to save their souls. ''The mothers," Dr. 
Dickey said, '' would regard infanticide as service to 
the Lord." What a state of barbarism the soul of 
a man is in when he can conceive of conditions where 
murder would be serving God ! Where did he get 
such conceptions as he holds? Not from the teach- 
ings of Jesus, surely. No, not from him who said, 
'' Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid 
them not ; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
This man has got both eyes shut to the future, and 
is clinging to the past with both hands. If he had 
said that any man who would marry and raise up 
children when he believed that he was raising them 
up to be damned if they died out of the fold of the 
realm of ideas covered by the salvation of ortliodoxy 
was a crimiual, I might have thought the man had 
some sense, or was at least living consistently with 
his creed. 



WHY DO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE ? 251 

What do these creatures mean who go on beget- 
ting children when they know that, according to 
their creed, the larger part of those born upon earth 
are lost in eternal damnation ? Can anyone tell me 
why men cling to such disgraceful theories? It is 
not reason, or judgment, or sense, or growth — it is 
the same lingering superstitious past-worship that 
keeps alive the miserable and contemptible beliefs 
of the savage. One thing that serves to hold men 
to old beliefs after they have ceased to worship them 
is fear. I once talked with a professor of religion, 
who, I think, was a good man, iu regard to the deeds 
of Moses. When he came to find what I had told 
him was in the Bible, he seemed rather sorrowful, 
and could not see how it could be right for Moses 
to do as he did ; but he asked me if I did not think 
it best to believe the Bible (which would necessitate 
the acceptance that murder and rape were committed 
hj the will of 'God), if I did not think it safe, and I 
laughed at him. The idea of connecting safety with 
believing that which is a lie and a slander against 
God, had never entered my mind. The fear of hell 
holds many a man in bondage to things against 
which his soul revolts. Fear of the result of be- 
lieving that which I feel to be true will find no 
abiding place in me, and it seems almost a contra- 
diction to assume that it can in anyone. Were fear 
to be a consideration in belief (and in one sense it 
should be), I should think men would fear to believe 
such slanders against God as are many things con- 
tained in the Bible, and to which, in another connec- 
tion, I have already referred. Not that their God 



252 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

will take dire vengeance upon them forever, but that 
the direct result — the consequences of so believing 
— will be injurious. It is deadening to the soul, 
dwarfing to the spirit, and jou can but reap the fruit 
of the seeds which you have sown. But men have 
got the thing reversed, and instead of fearing to dis- 
believe the prompting of their own hearts, and the 
light and truth of to-day, which strike a responsive 
chord in their inmost souls, they put it away with 
fear and trembling, calling it the " suggestion of the 
adversary," and fear to disbelieve the things of the 
past, clearly showing that it is not on account of 
the apparent truth and goodness in the thing itself, 
but in the fear and superstition connected with this 
clinging to the past as perfection. And when you 
ask them how they can believe those things, they 
ask you if you have not any faith. 

There is an immense amount of trouble, a great 
deal of blindness, an incalculable amount of harm, 
coming from the misuse of the word faith. Men say 
that their religion is a religion of faith, and that 
they believe these things to which I object on ac- 
count of that faith. Faith tells them that the whale 
swallowed Jonah. Faith tells them that the deeds 
of cruelty committed by Moses and David were 
just. Faith tells them that Elisha raised the dead, 
and faith tells them that the Bible is not contradic- 
tory, and that it is true from Genesis to Revelations 
— veritable word of God. There is something that 
tells them this, but when they use the word faitli^ 
they have got the wrong Avord. The one they want 
is credulity. That is it ; this is not of faith, but 



WHY DO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE ? 253 

plain, unvarnished credulity instead. Because I do 
not believe things which a little plain common sense 
unhindered by any slavery of the mind to some- 
body's ipse dixit — to somebody's notion which came 
down through days of ignorance from some far- 
distant grandparent who dwelt in the dark — shov/s 
to be false, they say, " O thou of little faith." Well 
might I reply to them, O thou of great-credulity. 

Those things which j^ou hold, this system which 
you raise up, and for proof of which you go to the 
Bible, is not of faith, but of belief ; and the belief 
of much of it comes, as I have said, through credu- 
lity. I want, in some way, to get those who put 
implicit confidence in the truth of the Bible to look 
upon the picture from the point at which I stand. 
No matter if you do not think you will like it, no 
matter if j^ou think the view you now have is per- 
fect, perhaps you can tell better after j^ou have 
looked from another point. Let us examine this 
matter of faith, belief, and credulity a little. What 
do those who believe that the Bible is the word of 
God tell us would be the result of the destruction 
of the authority of the Bible ? What would be the 
result of coming to regard it as having no more au- 
thority to teach regarding the things of which it 
teaches, than parson Jones or Dr. Doolittle ; that 
men wrote it, and that it simply sets forth their 
ideas, and was not spoken with divine authority by 
especial inspiration any more than the utterances of 
men to-day? There is one universal answer to this, 
to the effect that it would be the ruin of mankind ; 
that they would be utterly lost. Man, they tell us, 



-254 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

would be like a ship without a rudder, driven by a 
storm upon the reefs and shoals where she would 
surely go to pieces. They draw a pall over the 
earth, and tell you all would end in corruption and 
death ; death both of body and of soul. You ask 
me if that is not faith, if it is not perfect faith in 
the Bible ? and I tell you it looks to me like a pict- 
ure absolutely without faith. If you insist upon 
regarding it as faith — faith in the Bible — let me ask 
you if you do not think it would be better to have 
a little faith in God ? Call what you have faith, if 
you will, but see, and do not deny, where it is 
placed. 

Man made the Bible, and man might destroy it 
utterly and beyond reclaim, so that another copy 
would never exist upon the earth, and God would 
reign just the same. No act of man can destroj the 
the purpose of the ruler of all. Call your belief 'faith, 
if you will, but it is not faith in God ; of that there 
can be no question. It is therefore not faith, 
but belief — belief in what men have said or 
written being an utterance of God ; belief in 
something which you have present with you, 
which is visible to the natural eye — simply a 
belief in the absolute perfection of a creation of man, 
and is, therefore, accepted by man only by and 
through credulity. The Koran will live, but its su- 
preme authority will die. The sacred books of all 
nations will doubtless live. I trust that not one of 
them will be lost ; but their supreme authority, the 
supreme authority of the past over the present and 
the future, will die beyond resurrecti(m. The Bible 



WHY BO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE? 255 

will live and will be of use to mankind, but the be- 
lief in its inerrancy, in its perfection, in its divine 
authority, will die the death of all error. And 
after all these things come to pass, the united world 
will look up with receptive minds to God, and their 
spirits will freely bear witness with his spirit of 
truths that will be eternal. There is one thing that 
is quite noticeable in connection with the advanced 
religious thought of -all ages, where that religious 
thought is assumed to be based on and contained in 
some crystallized form or book (the Bible or any 
book that is assumed to be the perfect foundation of 
all religious truths), and that is that all who teach 
some new conception of God or duty seek to es- 
tablish the claim that the things which they set 
forth are contained in the teachings which they 
have had all along; and ofttimes that they were 
once held, but have been abandoned. They cannot 
deny that a grave difference of opinion exists, and 
so they either say that what they are teaching is 
right and that which the church is teaching is 
heretical, or else that they too believe the " law and 
the prophets " — only they conceive that they teach 
things different from the views held by the majority, 
and which they themselves once entertained. Now, 
I cheerfully admit that this might be the case, but 
ts it ? The heretic of religion has not been the 
man who said he did not believe the Bible (at any 
rate, he is not the one I am considering), but the 
man who advanced new ideas, new teachings, and 
still said he believed the book to be true, and that 
he was only making a new interpretation. It was 



256 BELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the same old bottle^ but he was putting in some 
new wine. And so he persuasively told his hearers 
that they should still worship at the old shrine, and 
still believe the same things, only there was a new 
meaning to many of those things, which he urged 
them to accept as taught by the Bible. In pursu. 
ance of this plan they have tortured different parts 
of the Bible out of all semblance of sense or reason, 
and, under the name of faith, have readily in- 
troduced credulity to aid tbem in the work. This 
process is the author of all sophistries of which 
some portion is found in all creeds, and the most 
far-fetched and groundless are found in the teach- 
ings of the Jesuits. It is this clinging to. the Bible, 
this clinging to the past, this idolatry of the ages, 
this worshiping as perfect the things that were ; 
and the feeling that they must be found to accord 
with the new idea, or the new idea must positively 
be found to accord with them — that is at the foun- 
dation of the trouble. This is the root, this is the 
germ of this matter. Paul was accused of heresy, 
and what did he say : *' But this I confess unto 
thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so 
worship I the God of my fathers, believing all 
things w^hicli are written in the law and in the 
prophets." Now, I want j'OU to understand that I 
have a good deal of respect for Paul. He was a re- 
markable man for his time, in many things sensible, 
philosophical, and liberal ; but that is not the point. 
Paul said he believed *' all things which were writ- 
ten in the law and in the prophets ;" but did he? 
Was the new light contained in the Old Testament? 



WHY BO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE? 257 

Were the teachings of Moses in accord with the 
teachings of Jesus ? Did Jesus, whose disciple 
Paul was and whose teachings he had accepted as 
true, believe all things in the law and in the proph- 
ets? I say that he did not, and neither did Paul. 
We know that Jesus contradicted the law, and that 
which a man contradicts he surely does not believe. 
He contradicts it in the matter of divorce ; he con- 
tradicts it in the doctrine of an eye for an eye and a 
tooth for a tooth ; therefore no man can say ttiat he 
believes them. Neither did Paul believe them. In- 
asmuch and wherever Jesus taught one whit 
different from the teachings of the old law, he 
taught the superiority of the new, and therefore 
contradicted the old in that particular. It is no 
use to tell me that I do not contradict the old the- 
ory when I give a new one to occupy its place which 
teaches very different things. Such a claim is 
nothing but sophistry, and is a shame to the reason 
of man and an affront to him who gave it. Why 
this eternal seeking to hide the head under the wing 
of the past? Why not stand out like a man, as God 
intended, and instead of seeking some authority of 
the past for the truth of the present, recognize at 
once the eternal authority of truths and know that 
God is its author ? Truth needs no authority, 
needs no refuge under the cloak of past ignorance 
where it seeks to justify itself by the flimsy crea- 
tions of man, for truth is of God, and therefore is 
of itself authority. 

Paul, for all the debt we may owe him, had this 
very same clinging to the things of old which we 



-^-.^ 



258 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

have with us to-day, and so covered his light of the 
present with the cloak of the past. And this spirit 
and mistake has permeated the reformers of all 
ages. They have come to us with the light in one 
hand and darkness in the other, and instead of tell- 
ing us to have the light and leave the darkness, they 
have told us to take both or be damned. They 
have told us that the darkness was authority for the 
light, and that it was a part of it. They have told 
us that those who did not think so could not see — 
were blind — when the fact was that they were them- 
selves blind. All the long, long years men have 
accepted unquestioningly and unthinkingly the 
say- so of someone, or what some man said was the 
saying of someone whose name they gave and 
whose authority they assumed to state. I say these 
teachings have been accepted unthinkingly, and 
they have — as unthinkingly as the saying that a 
man whose voice has what is called a " nasal twang " 
talks through his nose. Now, perhaps they will tell 
you that what makes him do it is because he has a 
bad cold, or catarrh, or perchance that a growth 
has formed in his head so that he " talks through 
his nose," when all the time the real fact of the 
case is that he ca7it talk through his nose. Just you 
try it. When you talk with no obstruction in the 
nose, you talk naturally or clearly ; or, as I may 
say, *' talk through your nose ;" but the moment 
there is obstruction and you can't talk through your 
nose you make the sound called talking through your 
nose. Anj^one can verify this in a moment by 
pressing their nostrils with the fingers and closing 



WHY DO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE? 259 

them and uttering a few words. Now this is one of 
the most simple and also most common of the state- 
ments which we make unthinkingly, which is the 
reverse of fact, and this is why I give it. I give it 
simply as an illustration of the unconscious accept- 
ing of what someone has said, until it becomes a 
universally accepted fact, although it is a very plain 
and self-evident perversion of fact — the exact op- 
posite of truth. My object and my desire is not to 
condemn those who hold false views, but to show 
them true ones. Dr. Briggs is only making the 
mistake of Paul when he fights to staj^ within the 
Presbyterian church — is, in fact, only making the 
same mistake that has been made by church " here- 
tics " of all ages and which is the father of all 
the creeds of Christendom. The foundation, then, 
of the belief in the inerrancy and truth of the teach- 
ings of the Bible as a whole, of its divinely inspired 
authorship and its perfect agreement — one part 
with the other — is founded upon the fable of 
Adam and Eden, and builded with blocks of fear 
which are firmly set in the cement of credulity ; and 
this is why men cling to the Bible. It is not be- 
cause the reason and intelligence of man (which 
prove him other than a brute) tell him that it is 
true. No one claims that reason is the guide that 
brings men to such a result. They tell us it is 
faith ; but they have got the wrong word. I do not 
forget that there is good in the Bible and that men 
might have been justified in clinging to that I be- 
lieve in clinging to everything that is good, no mat- 
ter where found. What I object to is men tak- 



260 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

ing the whole mass, this mixture of reason and 
absurdity, this mixture of goodness and villainy, 
this mixture of fact and fable, this mixture of God- 
worship and devil-worship, and putting their arms 
around it all and hugging it to their breasts so close 
that they cannot see the thorns and nettles and ser- 
pents which the mass contains, affirm that it is the 
true and unchanging word of God, and that greater 
light or more perfect teaching man can never at- 
tain to or receive. 

There is one more point in this connection on 
which I desire to make myself understood, and that 
is this : It is not the thing itself, but the use made 
of it, which does the harm. The world is full of 
things, as I have tried to show, of which the misuse 
is evil, and the use good. This rule applies also to 
the Bible. That much good could come to man by 
studying it and contemplating the ideas and deeds 
of the people of whom it speaks, with their motives 
and results; showing, as it does, progress and de-^ 
velopment of thought and conceptions of God and 
duty ; learning even from some of its philosophy, 
seeing a good deal of man's progress and hin- 
drance along the road of life, seems too obvious to 
need pointing out. The evil came in the misuse of 
it, in accepting, with surpassing credulit}^ the state- 
ments of writers that what they said had a '* thus 
saith the Lord " in it, and was the ne plus ultra oi 
religious life and teaching ; thereby deifying the 
passions of men, and making their deeds of blood 
and fiendishness the acts of the God of heaven and 
earth by making their commands and notions a part 



WHY DO MEN CLING TO THE BIBLE? 261 

of his " unchangiug word," and in pursuance of 
which men still accept the assertion and cling, like 
a man to his swaddling clothes, to something which 
he has long ago outgrown. Professors of Chris- 
tianity would readily accept the assertion that the 
belief in the accepted revelation, miracle and teach- 
ings which furnished authority for the practice of 
religions outside of Christianity, and in which are 
to be found the multitude, while Christianity has 
the few, are clung to pre-eminently because of su- 
perstition, ignorance, and credulity ; and that such 
a clinging to. the absolute correctness and complete- 
ness of these religions is, indeed, past- worship. 
But here they stop. They can see the fault in their 
neighbor easily enough, but they can see none at 
home. Perhaps, if they were to take a new lesson 
from the story of the " Mote and the Beam," they 
would be better fitted for the field of missionary labor, 
which does not progress as easily as of old. At 
present, they are making great efforts abroad, while 
at home, among themselves, men are fast rejecting 
the truth of the things which they are putting for- 
ward with so much assurance. Growth is demand- 
ing recognition, and it will not be dismissed ; and 
long before the '' heathen " are converted to a be- 
lief in the inerrancy of the scriptures that belief 
will have been repudiated by Christendom. Long 
before India accepts the cruelties of the Old Testa- 
ment as the command of God, they will be believed 
to be false by all, save moral cowards, in the United 
States of America. The men of to-day are opening 
their eyes to the light of to-day, and coming out of 



262 KELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the state where, '' having eyes they see not, and 
hearing they do not understand." And more and 
more will the question be asked, Why do men cling 
to the Bible as the word of God ? and the cry of 
" heretic " and '* Infidel " will not stop it any more 
than it will stop the moving of the planets in the 
heavens. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Belief, Unbelief, Faith, Eeason, and Prayer. 

Belief. 

Belief, throughout all ages, has been the accep- 
tance, as true, of the dogmas of the majority. In 
Judea of old it was to accept the utterances of for- 
mer Hebrew prophets as divine truth. In Christen- 
dom, belief is to accept both the New and Old 
Testament, as the word of God. In the realms of 
Mohammedanism, belief is to accept Mohammed as 
the prophet of God, and his teachings, therefore, as 
divine. In short, among all religions, belief consists 
simply in believing the claims they put forth to be 
true. 

Unbelief. 

In Judea, he who did not accept Judaism as true 
was called an unbeliever. In Christian lands, he 
who does not accept the doctrines of Christianity 
(so-called) as true is an unbeliever. Among Mo- 
hammedans, he who does not accept the religion of 
Mohammed is an unbeliever. In all lands where 
any form of religious exercise predominates, he who 
does not accept its teachings as true is said to be 
an unbeliever. This rule is also true in the land of 



264 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

many religions. Each one is calling tliose who ac- 
cept the other, and reject theirs, " unbelievers.'' 
Those who compose each system are sure, in their 
own minds, that theirs is the true religion, and 
therefore dub the rest of the world "unbelievers." 
This action is absurd, and reminds me of a crowd of 
little boys quarreling over their play. Unbelief, 
then, consists in the opposite of belief. Belief, to 
the professor of Christianity, is to believe the claims 
of Christianity to be true. Unbelief, to a professor 
of Christianity, then, is to believe the claims of 
Christianity to be false. Unbelief, to the Moslem, 
is to believe the claims of his religion to be false ; 
and so on to the end of the list. There is, there- 
fore, properly, no such a thing as unbelief. When 
a man says another is an unbeliever, he simply 
means to state that the man in question believes the 
thing to be false which lie believes to be true. 

There are three attitudes of the mind toward 
every proposition : First, that of believing it to be 
true ; second, that of indecision, a state of doubt 
as to whether it be true or not ; and third, the belief 
that the proposition is false. All " unbelief," there- 
fore, is but another name for belief. All " unbelief " 
is grounded in belief, and, properly speaking, does 
not exist. '' Unbeliever " is a fiction of language 
used to designate someone who believes the exact 
opposite of what he who uses the word holds to be 
true, and may, with equal sense and propriety, be 
applied to one man as to another, and cannot be, 
with propriety, applied to anyone. It is, moreover, 
a descriptive fiction, which originated in the conceit 



BELIEF, UNBELIEF, FAITH, ETC. 265 

of the man who used it that his belief was perfect 
— was all true — and that that of all others was 
false, and it had therefore better be returned to Ju- 
daism with the compliments of the civilized world, 
for, truly, he who uses it has much greater need to 
be ashamed than he against whom it is used. Be- 
lief, pure and simple, I conceive to be to accept as 
suflGicient the evidence in support of an idea. 

Faith. 

Faith is, I believe, the intuitive reaching out after, 
and the confidence in, the existence of those things 
of whose existence and reality we have no absolute 
proof. Credulity is the accepting of a thing as true 
from evidence which is insufficient or at variance 
with reason. It does, therefore,, appear to me that 
the moment you say that the Bible contains proof 
of your religion, it must, of necessity, cease to be a 
religion of faith, and become a religion of belief. 
Faith is not required, for you assume to have filled 
its place with demonstration. Your demonstration 
is now open to critical examination, as it comes 
within the realm of natural observation and criti- 
cism, and if your belief proves to. be based upon in- 
sufficient evidence, or is at variance with reason, it 
must be called credulity, for the credulous persoii 
is he who so believes. The issue then resolves itself 
into the question. Is there sufficient proof of the 
claims of the Bible, and are those claims in accord- 
ance with reason ? Upon this issue the fate of the 
dogma of the past depends. This book contains my 
answer, which cannot be considered affirmative. 



266 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

Faith loses its existence when belief takes its place ; 
which may be well, if the belief be well founded, 
but disastrous if it is not. Faith has found its 
grave in Bible inerrancy, and the belief that came 
to take its place is the child of credulity. 

Eeason. 

Reason is the power to test, to try, to compare the 
relation and value of mental perceptions and con- 
ceptions (and may well be said to be the father of 
them, since so-called perceptions and conceptions 
would apparently have no existence where reason 
was not present in any degree). It is the balance 
of the mind — the scale in which we weigh thoughts 
and ideas. It is the rule by which we measure all 
which we contemplate, and is, therefore, the founda- 
tion of judgment and intelligent choice. Perfect 
reason, like all perfection, must have its root in 
that from which cometli all things which are real 
and true., and which we call God. It is, in man, like 
all good things of which he is in any measure the 
possessor, found in varying degrees of power and 
purity. ** Inspiration " — or what has been called 
inspiration — inspirational religion, has dethroned 
reason, has placed the judge in the dock, and has 
usurped his place, with miracle for an advocate, who 
will not even permit the case to be tried upon the 
rule of evidence, but arbitrarily arrogates to itself 
the supreme right of sole judge of all in heaven and 
earth. It has thrown away the scale of God, and in 
its place has set up one of its own creation, whose 
beam always tips according to its desires. Reason 



BELIEF, UNBELIEF, FAITH, ETC. 267 

has been dethroned because it was in plain opposi- 
tion to the claims of men. Had their claims been 
iu accord with reason, they would have appealed to 
reason to support them. Logic and dogma could 
not agree, and so, as they could not part with dogma, 
they condemned the highest authority that man 
possessed, and called it *' human reason," and ele- 
vated dogma to a place far above that claimed by 
reason, and assumed it to be perfection — the ne plus 
nltra of truth and knowledge of God and his deal- 
ings with men. Reason would not become dogma, 
because it is a for and against, it is the great exam- 
iner, while dogma is self-sufficient and unreasoning 
— an absolute assumption based, not upon reason or 
possible facts, but upon assumed facts, regardless 
of, and at variance with, all known and present nat- 
ural law and natural results. We might have 
another variety of dogma, which would be a posi- 
tion or conception held as impregnable to assault 
from the fact that it was founded upon and builded 
in reason — a position which was logically invin- 
cible, on account of its being able to show by reason 
that it w^as unquestionably correct. This sort of 
dogma would court investigation, and would be 
builded of the results of such examination. In 
other words, we should appeal to reason as the test 
of dogma, instead of appealing to dogma as the test 
of reason. It is, as we now have it, only a reverse 
condition of things from that which ought to exist, 
and which some day will be recognized as correct. 



268 beligion and the bible. 

Prayer. 

Prayer is a petition for aid, and is used in a vari- 
ety of ways and under many conditions, and is ad- 
dressed to the power supposed to be able to grant 
the request. Sometimes it is addressed to a petty 
judge, sometimes to an assembly of state legislators, 
sometimes to a king or queen, and sometimes to 
Congress, but usually to the power which we call 
God. The conditions of prayer are as various as 
the desires of men, and, under the common view of 
praying to God to do a thing which, he would not do 
if you did not ask him, and which he may not see 
fit to grant if jou do pray, partakes of the ridicu- 
lous, as it places man in the attitude of asking God 
to do something which he had not intended or 
thought to perform, except he was asked to do it — 
as though, if God is the being you assume him to 
be, he would withhold any good gift from man which 
was in his power to bestow, whether asked or un- 
asked. A parent who has the power to bestow some 
good gift or favor upon a child does not withhold 
that gift until, in its need and distress, the child 
cries out for aid, but, if he deems it a proper thing 
for the child to have, he bestows it unasked. And 
if he does not deem it best, no true parent would be 
cajoled into giving that which he believed to be un- 
wise and injurious. From the standpoint of the 
believers in the efficacy of prayer of to-day, this 
practice would seem to me to be a curious and un- 
reasoning superstition. Men pray for rain, and fast 
as well as pray, which they must regard as a species 



BELIEF, UNBELIEF, FAITH, ETC. 269 

of self-affliction, of sacrifice, which will be pleasing 
to God, and cause him to more readily jield to their 
desires — more favorably receive their prayers — 
seemingly forgetting alike the folly of the thing, and 
the statement of their God (as they assume it to be) 
that '' the rain falleth alike upon the just and the 
unjust.'* They assume, as it appears by their acts, 
that God either does not know of their need, or 
else is not disposed to recognize it, unless he is be- 
sought with prayer and sacrifice. Many will take 
exception to this statement that he requires sacri- 
fices, but if their fasting is of avail, they must admit, 
if they are inclined to be consistent, that it is only 
a modern sacrifice, and is a more civilized form of 
expressing the relics of that sentiment or belief 
which prompted the barbarians of old to do more 
barbarous things. I think that men in general will 
admit, without argument, that sacrifice preceded 
prayer in the days of old, as well as forming a part 
at least of the acknowledgment of the reception of 
what they regarded as special favors from God. 
Sacrifice, then, in olden times may well be consid- 
ered as associated with prayer, although it is prob- 
ably not thought of to-day in that light even by 
those who fast, but is performed unreasoningly, as 
many an ancient custom is as foolishly observed. If 
rain came after fasting and prayer, it was regarded 
as sent in answer to that prayer, and if rain came 
not, after the fasting and prayer, it was said that it 
was not God's will that they should have rain. 

Now, rain would have come just the same, prayer 
or no prayer. Five ships are in danger of going to 



270 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

the bottom of the ocean, and the people on board 
each of them pray long and earnestly that she may 
withstand the storm, may outride the gale and reach 
the end of their voyage safely at last ; and four of 
them do come out of it safely, and people say it 
was an answer to prayer. One of them goes to the 
bottom, and people say it was not in accordance 
with God's will that they should be saved, and 
therefore he did not answer their prayers and they 
were lost. A steamship crossing the Atlantic meets 
with an accident — breaks her shaft, and the passen- 
gers entertain great fears for their safety. I actu- 
ally read a description of such a case in a ship 
bound for New York, sometime within a year, and 
the account, that purported to come from some high 
functionary in the city of New York, stated that he 
thought they were saved by prayer ; that after 
much praying the waters became calm, although I 
noticed in the account that, at this very time of 
reported calmness, it stated, in referring to another 
ship which came near b}^ that the sea was so rough, 
that she could not lower a boat to come aboard. 
But suppose that the sea toas calm ; what of it? 

Is it any marvel that it should not always con- 
tinue boisterous? They were days making their 
repairs, quite a number of them, and, if at one time 
the waves had ceased to toss and roll in frightful 
power, is it any indication that God commanded 
them to be still ? By no means. You only say in 
substance that God hears one set of poor, shivering 
humanity and guides them' safely home to friends 
and loved ones, and lets the others go down to a. 



BELIEF, UNBELIEF, FAITH, ETC. 271 

watery grave, filling their homes with mourning, 
want and woe. Such an assumption is a travesty on 
common sense. You tell me that a man was once fed 
by ravens and his life thereby preserved, but when I 
tell you there are others that have perished of hun- 
ger on mountain, plain, and desert, who toiled on 
with parched lips from which the blood started be- 
cause of long-continued heat and need of a little of 
the rivers of water in the realm controlled, as you 
say, by their God, and the only answer which they 
got to their prayers was a terrible death in de- 
lirium, you tell me it was God's will, and there- 
fore he did not heed their prayer. I make no such 
accusation against any friend of mine. No God 
would suffer such a thing to be if he could help it, 
and if he could do it in one case he could do it in 
the other also. The rain did not fall upon Eussia, 
and vegetation dried to a crisp. The land was full 
of death. From morning until evening, and from 
evenine again until day, the child cried for the food 
which aie'' father had long denied himself to supply, 
until the fever entered the home and stilled m 
death the agony which could no longer be endured. 
Millions enduring privations, and thousands starv- 
ing dying of disease induced by privation ; peas- 
an'ts burning the very huts in which they lived to 
keep from freezing, and all the while millions ot 
earnest, heartfelt prayers were offered up to him 
who men tell me, could liave sent the rain that would 
have prevented all this. Why need they waste 
breath praving for aid from one who knew their 
condition and who could have relieved it? If be 



272 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. ' 

could relieve that distress when it was upon them 
in its fullness, he could have kept the evil day from 
them in the first place. If he could have kept it 
from them, and did not, then it is no use to ask him 
to retrieve it now. "What was the result of all this 
great cry that went up from fourteen millions of 
souls, two millions of whom, at least, could not, by 
sacrificing all they had, procure food to keep them 
from starving? All over the world the hearts 
of men were touched, and in response they — 
what? dropped on their knees and prayed? No! 
a thousand times, no ! They put their hands in 
their pockets, and from east and from west, from 
north and from south, was heard a clink, clink, clink, 
as the gold was tossed into this mighty contribu- 
tion-box of God. And the steamships steamed up 
to the wharves and were filled with the food pur- 
chased and contributed, and steamed away again to 
the ports of Russia, where they deposited their con- 
tributions to the answer of these millions of prayers ; 
all which came through the " milk of liuman kind- 
ness " — the law of love in the hearts of men. 
God could not send them corn by a miracle, or he 
would have filled the land with plenty in an hour. 
No prayer to God is ever answered save through the 
hearts of men. Would to God that I might never 
again hear it said that God could have touched 
those famine-stricken cheeks with the glow of health, 
could have cooled the fevered brow, and deposited 
a " horn of plenty '' upon the step of every hut and 
dwelling in that famine-cursed and fever-stricken 
land, and didn't do it. Sucli statements fill me with 



BELIEF, UNBELIEF, FAITH, ETC. 273 

revolting and disgust. Did I take them at their 
word, I should turn away altogether from the con- 
templation of deity, and with the revolting which is 
more and more coming into men's hearts against the 
existence of a being such as that teaching would 
imply, I should say, ''There is no God.'' Those 
who teach these things little know what they are 
doing. They present this view of God, and then 
wonder why men don't worship him. They offer 
you food which the stomach cannot receive, and then 
wonder why you do not eat. They offer you a ser- 
mon based upon these theories, and wonder why you 
do not come to church. They say men's hearts are 
growing harder and more perverse, and that they 
are getting farther and farther away from God ; and 
all the time their hearts are getting softer, and they 
are getting more in touch with and nearer to the true 
God, and the old, worn-out, barbarous ideas of God 
find no response in their hearts, and so they keep 
away from the places where they are taught. Prayer 
to God never stilled the storm, never hushed the 
tempest, never brought rain upon a famine-stricken 
land, never brought one ship safely into port, and 
sent another to the bottom, by controlling the ele- 
ments in the one case, and not controlling them in 
the other ; never sent the ravens to feed one man 
and left thousands to perish for lack of succor 
which he could have sent. The laws of the uni- 
verse work ever on ; there is no suspension to ac- 
commodate Jones or Brown. ''What, then; is there 
no answer to prayer?" you ask me, and I reply, 
There may be. You ask me if God answers prayers, 



274 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

and I answer, He may. ^* But what do yon mean by 
all this?" yon ask, and I will try to tell yon. 
Prayer is never answered by the setting aside of 
law, or the performance of a miracle. Prayer which 
cannot be answered except by setting aside some 
law is never answered. Lightning will strike one 
man just as quickly as another, if he happens to 
stand under the right tree. The storm that wrecks 
the pirate craft will send the missionaries' vessel to 
the bottom, if she is of the same strength, although 
upon her deck men may bow in prayer, and upon 
the other they may be cursing God. The rain, the 
wind, the tempest, or the famine, does not come be- 
cause of any quality which you or I may possess, 
and all who are within its fury will fare the same, 
as far as miracle is concerned (and miracle takes 
place whenever law is set aside). Prayer can be 
answered only by the fulfillment of law and in accord- 
ance with it. Therefore all answer to prayer must 
come through human agency — must come through the 
hearts of men. Perhaps had men recognized this 
fact — had they seen that they were to be instru- 
ments of God — they would have relieved all the dis- 
tress in Russia as fast as it arose, and no one would 
have suffered. It might have been done — it was 
wdthin man's power and province to do it — and if 
Christendom had prayed in the right way (with their 
hands), they could have done it. Wherever and 
whenever, man can do a thing, you may rest assured 
that that is the way it must be accomplished, if at 
all. Man must be the agent in this matter, no mat- 
ter if you make God the principal, and in nowise 



BELIEF, UNBELIEF, FAITH, ETC. 275 

else can it be accomplished. And then you must 
not forget that the answer comes, not by miracle, 
not by special providence, which sometimes does, 
and sometimes does not, answer, but by Law which 
permeates the universe, which law is in man, and. is 
itself God. I am willing to admit that God may 
answer prayer in this way, because I regard God as 
he in whom dwelleth in its fullness all goodness 
which dwelleth in us in part ; but prayer seems 
to me to be answered by that spirit which is within 
man only, as it is not answered fully ofttimes, but 
only in the measure in which this spirit of goodness 
is possessed by men. If this does not take the 
place of some old idea which you have held, yours 
must be the fault, for save through the agency of 
mail is no answer made to prayer. There is one 
other way in which prayer may be answered. I do 
not say it is so answered, and I do not say it is not. 
I fancy I see a possibility that it can be, and is, so 
answered. The minds of men are more intimately 
connected than is generally supposed. There are 
laws of which we have as yet but the merest glimpse 
of knowledge. When I contemplated prayer in the 
common belief of its operation and utility, it seemed 
for a time like pure folly, save in those cases wherein 
mental or spiritual replies only were asked or ex- 
pected, or some cases where the thing wished for 
could be received through effect upon the mind, and 
in which cases the belief of the petitioner would 
probably take the place of actual answer, inasmuch 
as the condition asked for would very likely come 
to him through expectancy and imagination. But 



276 BELIGION AND TUE BlBLifi. 

knowing that, even under a mass of error and su- 
perstition containing the reverse of reason, there is 
often hidden some principle, some truth, some law, 
struggling for recognition, I still thought the mat- 
ter over, and with the result which I have already 
stated, and that which follows. 

There seem to be traces of a connection of mind 
with mind, even though the persons may be making 
no conscious effort to establish such a connection. I 
think I am not mistaken when I assert that it is no 
uncommon thing for a person to make some remark 
which another was about to utter. I have wit- 
nessed it many times, even when no conversation 
led up to the remark. Call it " thought reading," 
*' thought transference," *^mind reading," or what 
you like, and it does not explain it. I have no ex- 
planation to offer other than it is the manifestation 
of some law of which we have practically no knowl- 
edge. It is there, there is nothing supernatural 
about it, it is onlv one of the natural laws which as 
yet we do not understand. The only mystery there 
is connected with it is that which is connected with 
all things before we come to understand them. 
Furthermore, there is no doubt that this law ex- 
tends, even within our knowledge, very far beyond 
this, and is at the bottom of clairvoyance, which is 
something the existence of which no man can rea- 
sonably question. There are, moreover, those who 
have an influence over the minds of others at a dis- 
tance, very similar to that exerted if present with 
them. Men have been afraid of these things — have 
thought the devil was in them — but they need not 



BELIEF, UNBELIEF, FAITH, ETC. 277 

fear, there is no devil there, but something, some law, 
struggling to make itself known of men. How fool- 
ish to be afraid of it ! Why cannot prayer operate 
in the same way under certain conditions? You 
know that you cannot get the result of complying 
with certain conditions unless you comply with those 
conditions. The laws of health demand that you 
fulfill the conditions of those laws, and health is 
the result. Learn the conditions of that law, and 
what may not the result be ? As in the matter of 
health, you are affected by the recognition and obey- 
ing, or lack of recognition and lack of obeying those 
laws by others, so the lack of recognition and knowl- 
edge in the past, of other laws, may prevent our use 
of them to-day, and we thereby fail in many cases to 
get the result which a more perfect compliance would 
bring. My proposition, then, is that prayer can 
be answered only through a compliance with Law, 
and that answer, and that law, must be made mani- 
fest through the spirit of God which is in man. 
This cannot still the storm, or prevent the sinking 
of a ship, for that would be setting aside law, and 
not fulfilling it — that would be a miracle, and mir- 
acles do not happen. But it could answer all prayer 
that is in accord with Law, and that may be more 
far-reaching than we suppose. I make no pretense 
in this connection to writing an extensive treatise 
upon prayer — a volume could be written upon the 
subject — but just offer some suggestions which lead, 
as I think, in the right direction. 



GHAPTER XIII. 

Is There a God? 

The question seems foolisli ! Ask of the flower 
that lifts its head from a heap of earth and compost, 
and with its robes of spotless white, of pink, of 
crimson, of blue, or of gold, comes laden with fra- 
grance so mysteriously collected and combined. 
Man may plant the seed, but he cannot make it. He 
may, by the dictates of reason, carry to the soil that 
which will contribute to its growth and develop- 
ment, but he cannot apply it. In that mysterious 
laboratory there is a workman whom no eye can see, 
whom no hand can touch ; whose form cannot be 
defined, and whose powers are known or seen only in 
the product of his hands. Every blade of grass, 
every flower, every shrub, and every tree is like a 
hand raised, not only to ask, but to answer this ques- 
tion. 

The ordered world of earthly life, 

So true to some First Cause, 
Proclaims to us with many tongues 

• The God revealed in Laws. 
A mighty chemist, sure, is he, 

Whom no man can discern, 



IS THERE A GOD? 279 

Save by the product of his hands, 

That bids him ever learn ; 
Whose workshop, though beneath the feet, 

No eye can e'er descry ; 
Whose temple raised before our eyes 

Our vision does defy. 
We search and search both high and low. 

We pluck the flower that grows ; 
And as both root and branch we scan 

We ask it if it knows. 
A pleasant laugh comes ringing back : 
*' O man, how strangely blind ! 
Can nothing be you cannot see 

With eye as well as mind ?" 
You see the tree-tops waving there, 

A breath strikes on your cheek, 
You never think to doubt the wind 

Though vain your eyes would seek. 
The planets in their courses run, 

So true from year to year, 
And everything beneath the sun — 

Above, below, or near — 
Stand out as living- witnesses 

And say to all men, '^ See ! 
Behold the things which I have made, 

For there thou seest me." 
A thousand voices beckon us, 

Tliey ring on every hand ; 
Why need the eye refuse its sight 

And fail to understand ? 
The God of light in wisdom's might 

Has given man a guide 



280 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

To safely pass him on the way — 

Why casts he it aside ? 
Reason to man has ever been 

An eye unto his mind 
By which to see, in countless things, 

The God of all mankind. 
It tells him that the earth and sky 

Has some controlling power 
That permeates the universe 

From planet down to flower, 
And that therein is written out — 

Which all who will behold — 
" There is a God— I am thy God," 

In characters of gold. 

Is God Supreme? 

Is there any limit to the power of God ? The or- 
thodox answer both yes and no, and so I suppose 
they do not know. Although they would deny that 
supposition if it was put in their hearing, I do not 
limit the goodness of God ; neither do I know that 
in any important thing I limit Lis power (unless, 
possibly, it might be said i-t was important it should 
be so limited). I once began a statement with the 
remark, *'I do not know whether or not God could 
have made man any different than he did make him," 
when I was broken in upon by a horrified^* teacher " 
with the words, '' Oh, yes ; I do not limit the power 
of God. Of course he could have made man differ- 
ent," said this worthy man. " I don't know about 
that," I replied. "You believe God is perfect, do 
you not ?" "Yes." "And that his work is perfect ?" 



IS THERE A GOD? 281 

" Yes." *'Well, then, I do not see how he could 
have made man any different than he made him, for, 
in order to do so, he would have to make him 
either more or less than perfect, which is an impos- 
sibility upon its face. To claim that he could have 
made him more than perfect is an absurdity, and to 
claim that he could have made him less perfect than 
he did would impeach both his perfection and in- 
tent." I do not question the perfection of the 
^^ plan ;'' I do not question that perfect results will 
come from it, but I do question, and not only ques- 
tion but deny, that God can do otherwise than he 
does. He cannot do other than he does any more 
than perfection can cease to be perfection ; and if 
that were possible God himself might cease to be. 
There are, as has already been said, some things 
which are plainly impossible ; but these, or at least 
some of these things, are not essential, not impor- 
tant, and not best, which is only another illustra- 
tion of the principle that God can act only in one 
way (the best way). God cannot make an immovable 
body and an irresistible force. It is very plain that 
they could not both exist at the same time. Neither 
can mountains be made without valleys between 
them. Supremacy, then, does not include the pos- 
sibility of all things. To be supreme is to be the 
highest power — that above which there is no power. 
The notion that God could do anything (everything) 
is not tenable, and is not only uncalled for in su- 
preme power, but, if carried out, would destroy per- 
fection. 



282 religion and the bible. 

What Is God? 

'' Before the world God was," says the book. Well, 
what else? Must God have a dwelling-place, an 
abiding- place? or was he simply an infinite power 
existing nowhere ? Was he not, rather, a power ex- 
isting everyivhere? Which is the more reasonable, 
to believe that God, a spirit, had always existed, 
but solitary and alone until six thousand years ago, 
when he, by command, created everything from 
nothing, or that God is the power inherent in and 
coexisting with matter; and is himself the Law by 
which came all the forms and changing forms of all 
that is, or was, or is to be ? 

As for myself, I believe that the universe consists, 
not simply of this little world of ours and that 
which in it is, not simply even of the planets of 
which astronomers speak, but of worlds unnum- 
bered and unseen beyond the reach of the present 
knowledge and speculation of man, beyond the 
range of present sight, beyond the conception of 
man's limited vision, rolling through endless space, 
innumerable and unknown. Who has yet found the 
boundary line of God's creation ? Who can form 
any conception of a boundary to existence ? Who 
can grasp the idea of endless space? of innumerable 
worlds? Or who can conceive of a place which is 
the end of existence, and how it could be that there 
was a point beyond which absolutely nothing was? 
And yet, in this all, and through this all, there is a 
moving power, a progressive law, a universal prin^ 
ciple by which all things live and move and have a 
being, and that principle we call God. Let us un- 



IS THERE A GOD? 283 

derstand that he is the all in all ; that he is the 
light, the understanding, the goodness, and the 
power, and that there is none else beside him. "Ah ! 
do Tou say that God is all the power there is ?" 
asks someone. Yes, God is all the power that is. 
All else which you have in mind, and call power, is 
not power, but weakness ; and as power is infused 
weakness disappears. There may be darkness, but 
that is a state, and not a power. Tliere may be 
ignorance, but that is a condition, and not a power. 
Light dispels the darkness. Light is power, and is 
therefore of God. Knowledge dispels ignorance. 
Knowledge is power, and is therefore of God. 
Again the thought comes to us, as come it must 
when we consider these things, that man is not yet 
created, is not yet finished, is not yet complete ; 
that the creation is going on from day to day and 
from year to year ; that the tower of his perfection 
is rising higher and assuming a more symmetrical 
form ; is being raised and fashioned by one who 
constantly adds to its beauty, and that at last it will 
shine forth resplendent from base to cap-sheaf ; and 
that then there will be an Adam, and that in an 
Eden he will dwell. The fiat of creation is not yet 
carried out. God has not yet rested from his labors. 
The law by which these things were done never 
sleeps. Law is eternal, and must ever act. The 
moment it ceases it is dead. " And is this God that 
you are telling me of the God of love ?" Yes, this 
is the God of love ; for from him cometh every good 
and perfect gift. He is the source of all our good- 
ness, all our wisdom, all our truth. He is the 



284 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

light of life in whom are all things perfected and 
the weak made strong. No shade of hate or vindic- 
tiveness ever clouds his brow. All that he can do 
for us he is ever doing. If there is aught that 
should be done which is left undone, let man first 
look to himself. The moon cannot do the work of 
the sun ; neither can any do the work of man. All 
are parts, and each must do his appointed work. 
That which the sun can do, the sun must do. That 
which can be done by earth, air, sea, and sky, by 
earth, air, sea, and sky must it be done. So also that 
which can be done by man, by man alone will it 
ever be accomplished. ^' And is not this God — is 
not that the same great law working through man 
and for man, and by which he is perfected ?" Yes, 
this is God, and this is God's way. Man, who for 
thousands of years has been looking for miracle, 
for special providence, who has been looking for 
the aid to come from without, must look within. He 
must recognize in man the' agency through which 
must come those things to be' desired. Man must 
not stand sticking in the mud waiting for God to 
come and lift him out. He has the power to extri- 
cate himself if he will but use it, and he would 
have used it long ago if he had not been looking for 
it to be done in some other way. Man formed a 
conception of God's power and attributes too much 
after the power and attributes of man. Struggling 
to make itself known and comprehended, was the 
truth of man's divinity, of his relationship to God ; 
that he came from God and was of God, inasmuch 
as he was builded in him^ builded in truth, in law. 



IS THERE A GOD ? 285 

From that point, instead of searching to find God, 
instead of studying the things made to learn of the 
power that made them, men's imperfect conception 
of the divinity of man led them to say, "Man is 
created ' in the image of God,' * after his likeness.' " 
Man is, therefore, like God. And very naturally, 
they argued, if man is like God, then God is like 
man, and so laid the foundation for the conception 
of God found in the Old Testament, and which has 
clung to all who have accepted the Bible as the 
word of God. Instead of regarding God as a great 
and all-pervading law, whose formations were or- 
derly and progressive, they regarded the produc- 
tion of all form as instantaneous, as a sudden and 
perfect creation from nothing. And this was 
the basis of Genesis. Believing that God had 
dominion over all things celestial, and that man was 
created in the image and likeness of God, they as- 
sumed, therefore, that man (originally) had dominion 
over all things terrestrial. Seeing that man did 
not then have that dominion, they assumed that he 
had lost it through fault ; and that was the origin 
of the '*fall of man." As man was assumed to have 
been originally perfect, his fall must, it was thought, 
have come through some evil spirit ; and this was 
the devil of the Bible, and all built upon a 
wrong conception of what God and man is. 
Those who think that God is in the form of a man 
and that they shall one day see him face to face as 
man sees man (physical man) will look in vain. It 
is a part of the imaginative creations which placed 
him on a " great white throne " and attributed to 



286 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

him the passions of hate, jealousy, and vengeance. 
God is before the eyes of all — is ever visible in the 
laws of being ; and he who cannot see him in the 
sun, the moon, and the stars, as he gazes up into the 
arch above his head, who cannot see him in flower 
and fruit and tree, who cannot see him in earth and 
tree and sky, must first acquire his sight, and then 
he will behold. * 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Reward and Punishment. 

It seems plain that underlying many of the old 
ideas there was a truth. Let me see if I can make 
m3^self clear on this point. Men in all ages and 
conditions have believed in a God — no matter if 
they gave it another name, and no matter if they 
thought he was once a man or a bird — he was to 
them the power which we call God. Many of the 
conceptions of God were fantastic and savage, and 
the deeds and attributes ascribed to him were often 
full of contradictions. Underlying these crude and 
imperfect ideas was the truth of the existence of 
the power, of w^hich their conceptions were the im- 
perfect comprehension. Some men have believed 
this power reposed in one, some in three, and so on, 
almost even to believinoj that there was a separat^^ 
God for, or in, everything. The man who thought 
there was a god of the harvest, and a god of rain, 
and a god of this and a god of that, was not very 
far from the truth. He thought there was a sepa- 
rate God in everything, instead of understanding 
that the one great and universal God permeated all 
things. Truth is eternal, God is the same '' yester- 



288 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

day, to-day, and forever," but the comprehension of 
what God is, by man ; is, like man, the child of growth 
and development. The great hindrance to a more 
perfect comprehension, a more perfect understand- 
ing of the truth, has been the accepting of past at- 
tainments as perfection. So also have men had 
many different opinions regarding heaven, and the 
Bible theory of its being a place where all the 
righteous dwell in bliss without alloy, while friends 
and neighbors and kindred are suffering in a pit of 
eternal fire, is not the least inconsistent of them. 
This is the Bible idea of reward and punishment. 
There is doubtless a truth underlying all this, and 
that idea was tlieir comprehension of that truth. 
Is there, then, such a thing, or something which is 
like unto the reward and punishment of the Bible 
in any manner or degree whatever ? I think there 
is. Not that God will some day, by and by, call 
together the nations of the earth and punish some 
who have broken his laws and have not sought his 
pardon, and will forgive those who have broken his 
laws and have asked pardon. Not that he who has 
sinned and confessed, and confessed and sinned, and 
for whom the priest or the bishop has prayed will 
g^t a crown of glory, and he who has sinned and. 
has not confessed, who has not sought by politic 
methods (or those deemed politic) to get excused 
from the results of his deeds by going through cer- 
tain forms, will get a crown of thorns — will be lost 
in eternal damnation — but that the consequences of 
the acts of life are added to life, from day to day, 
and will follow alike the sinner and the saint. Be- 



REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. 289 

ward is the benefit derived from compliance with 
law. Punishment is the result of being out of har- 
mony, and therefoie at variance with law. Obedi- 
ence to law comes through knowledge and power, 
and disregard of law comes through ignorance and 
weakness. Each has its certain effect, and no 
special providence ever has interfered in the matter, 
or ever will. God is the law by which these things 
came, and he will not set aside his own work by ar- 
bitrary acts or special dispensation. This, too, like 
the result of the act, must come through the opera- 
tion of this same law of consequences. There is an 
old saying that " the burnt child dreads the fire," 
and why? Why should he dread the fire except 
because it hurt him ? He endured the pain until 
the wound healed, and he was, at the same time, 
taught the lesson of law, the lesson of consequences, 
which is the lesson of God. This law both punished 
and reformed him, and the latter may well be said 
to be the intent of the former. Perfection will be 
perfect harmony, perfect correspondence with law — 
with God ; and we are perfected by the knowledge 
of that law and the harmony with it, and that is the 
atonement (at-one-ment), the atonement with law 
being at one with law, at one with God. The only 
sense in which anyone can be an atonement for 
another is by showing him the law of God — the law 
which is God — and thereby help him to become at 
one with it — at one with him ; showing him the 
truth that, by accepting it, he may reap the pleasant 
reward — the pleasant consequences of correspon- 
dence with truth — with law — with God. And that 



290 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

is the truth underlying the atonement. It requires 
no prophetic ear to hear the question, *' What do 
you gain by this ? Wherein is this conception of 
reward and punishment and of atonement any better 
than that set forth in the Bible ?" Much every way, 
and chiefly because it is the truth. It substitutes 
truth for error ; it takes from God the passions of 
men and makes his law all in all. Eeward, punish- 
ment, reformation, perfection, all the positive and 
unequivocal results — the inevitable consequences of 
this great, all-powerful, all-subduing law. All- 
powerful because it is the only power that is ; all- 
subduing, because it is the light of life which is 
ever marching onward and must at last reach all 
darkness and permeate all minds. Again must I call 
to mind that man's primal condition was ignorance 
— ignorance of law — ignorance of God ; and that his 
development and perfection is simply knowledge 
and power acting upon ignorance and weakness, and 
that it will continue so to act until universal man 
receives the full measure both of knowledge and 
power. Again I cannot forbear calling to mind the 
fact of the error of the reverse conception of man's 
original power and perfection, as though the per- 
fect work of God could fail ! Plainly I am right in 
this matter. No all-wise and all-powerful God ever 
made man after the manner of Genesis. No crea- 
ture perfect but a day and degraded for eternity. 
Ignorance, darkness, and weakness is a condition, 
and down there, at the foot of the ladder of life, was 
man when law, with its knowledge, with its light, 
and with its strength, began the divine building in 



REWARD AND PPNISHMENT. 291 

the workshop of the infinite which has been growing 
higher and brighter and better as it was touched 
by, and responded to, the law of life, with which it 
was gradually getting into correspondence and at 
one. This substituting law and its inevitable re- 
sults for the reward and punishment-y-for the heaven 
and hell of the Bible — it is plain to see does not 
relieve man of his responsibility to law, does not 
relieve man of his accountability to God, but rather 
makes that accountability absolutely unavoidable. 
No scapegoat stands here to receive upon his head 
'* the iniquity of us all," but as the Lord liveth 
every man shall stand and give an account of him- 
self to God. And that account is being given every 
day, and man must bear the results until, by those 
results, he has learned to " cease to do evil," and 
learned to do well — until he sees and gets into 
harmony with law, if it takes a thousand years. 
The doctrine of predestination, of election, of eter- 
nal punishment, of heaven and joy for a few, and 
hell and torture never ending and objectless for the 
many, are passed away, and in their place we put 
the doctrine of personal accountability with its uner- 
ring and impartial results, which punish but to teach. 
Man has been eternally shifting his own responsi- 
bilities onto someone else from Eden to the present 
day. If, instead of blaming the devil, he would at- 
tend to his own business, he would get on much 
better, and have less of which to complain. It is ad- 
mitted that the road for some will be longer than for 
others, according as they live in accord with law or 
in violation of it, but we also believe that law, being 



292 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

power at work upon a condition, will in time accom- 
plish its purpose, and perfect that upon which it 
acts ; that it is not he who clings to dogmas that 
is nearest the way of life, but he ** who doeth the 
will of the father "—who doeth the will of the law ; 
who doeth not^ according to the "law of Moses," 
but according to the law of God, and that law, which 
is God himself, he revealeth unto all men in the 
things which he hath made. 

No jeweled crown upon the head. 

No harp with a thousand strings, 
Awaits for those who go to church ; 

No seraph, with spangled wings, 
Singing all day in blest abode 

Reserved where but few can be, 
No pearly walks and gates of gold, 

Adown by the crystal sea. 
Wait for one in the goal of life, 

The end of all hope and gain. 
While one awaits the dreadful doom 

Of a hell of endless pain ; 
A place of torture, sin, and woe. 

Where devils and fiends e'er dwell ; 
The king who reigneth ever there 

Is the fiend of darkest hell. 
But room for all who trod the way 

'Mid thorns, and thistles, and gloom, 
That leadeth every one at last 

Where flowers forever bloom. 
The foot that pressed the thorn, at last 

Has learned where the mosses grow 



REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. 293 

So cool and soft, a velvet bed 

Where the feet rejoice to go. 
And those who saw with vision dim, 

Now see with a wondrous light. 
And all mankind, no longer blind. 

Emerge from the realms of night. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Immobtality. 

This is an age of questioning, of searching, of 
critical examination. Among other things being 
to some extent brought forward in this relig- 
ious ferment which is going on within the realm 
of thought and reason, is the question of immortal- 
ity. The amount and character of evidence neces- 
sary to satisfy the mind upon this point varies with 
the individual. I say evidence, but as no one claims 
to be able to produce any visible proof (outside of 
statements of the Bible or similar books, which are 
not admitted), the question may more properly be 
considered as within the realm of faith and reason, 
instead of within the realm of proof and belief. To 
my mind, the belief in the existence of God carries 
with it a positive assurance of immortality. The 
contemplation of evolution, of development, of law, 
tells me that the end toward which that tends is to 
perfect and perpetuate, and not to degrade and de- 
stroy. I cannot think it possible for any man, un- 
less he be mentally deformed, to believe in a God 
and not believe in immortality. Such a position 
would be utterly inconsistent asd unreasonable ; and 
with me, reason must be the court of appeal in these 



IMMORTALITY. 295 

matters ; and I will back it against all the miracle 
and all the inspiration that is not in accord with 
reason which the world has ever produced. Science 
claims no proof either for or against immortality, so 
say the scientists, at least, but it seems to me that 
the central fact of science, if I may so term it, of 
the absolute immortality of all things testible, the 
fact that nothing can be annihilated, makes it reason- 
able to suppose that the spirit, that life, is immortal ; 
that that, like all other things of earth, is incapable 
of annihilation. You may burn a stick, but it is not 
destroyed, nor has the smallest particle (Tf its com- 
position ceased to exist. You have changed their 
form, but the parts of which it was composed 
still live in other forms. The flower that blossoms 
by the way will in a short while wither and decay ; 
but that of which it was composed is not lost, is not 
annihilated. Law called it into being and gave it 
its form of beauty, and law caused it to wither and 
decay. The life which was in it is not lost, and 
were that principle a consciousness, it would still 
exist and still be a consciousness. In the great 
economy of God absolutely nothing is lost. Yester- 
day you beheld a man in the possession of all his 
faculties ; to-day an inanimate form of flesh greets* 
your sight. The eye is there, but it is sightless. 
The ear is there, but it hears not. The tougue and 
the brain and the nerve are there, but no word greets 
you as you come into its presence. That is not your 
friend. That cold, corrupting flesh which will soon 
resolve itself into the elements whence it came, is 
not he whom you sought. You behold the house 



296 EEtlGION AND THE BIBLE. 

in wliicli he lived ; the tenant has moved away. 
Science can demonstrate to you that the house — 
the body — will but change its form and return to 
those elements for which it has an affinity and 
whence it came. If, then, all that was left when that 
had been taken which made it what it was in life 
and health is immortal, is it too much to claim that the 
part that was taken, that which vanished from your 
sight (although you never saw it, only the exercise 
of it, the same as you see law or God), is also im- 
mortal? Is it not, rather, the only truly reasonable 
conclusion to which you can come? Look at that 
form, speak to it, touch it — you receive no response. 
That is not your friend, I tell you ; your friend has 
gone away. No longer dwelling in a form of flesh, 
the spirit is clothed upon with a new garment and 
has been ushered into a higher and more per- 
fect existence. Disintegration applies only to 
that which has fulfilled its mission, to the steps 
in the ladder that have become useless, to 
the shell that held the old life before it had become 
fitted for the new, to the empty chrysalis whence 
the life has departed for another sphere, and not to 
that life itself. That life has only assumed a more 
• perfect form in obedience to law, in obedience to 
God, who will bring all things to perfection. The 
physical was only a means, and not an end. The 
coat which a man wears he wears for the good of 
the body ; when the coat becomes worn and old and 
is no longer of use, the man does not therefore die, 
but robes himself in a new garment. Likewise the 
the spirit, when its earthly house can no longer con- 



IMMORTALITY. 297 

tribute to its being and perfection, enters the new 
house and the new life. That being cannot become 
non-being, that existence cannot become non- 
existence, seems to me to have more reason* in its 
favor than against it. It is being that caused the 
accumulation of the atoms which entered into the 
composition of the body, and the moment that life 
left the body they began the process by which they 
were resolved again into that from which they were 
called to minister, to being, to existence. This 
latter idea in nowise affects my reasoning up to the 
introduction of the consideration of being and non- 
being, to which I call especial attention on account 
of the conclusion to which that will logically lead 
us, and which many will not agree with — namely, 
the immortality of all life. When I first heard of 
the belief in the immortality of animals I thought 
it a very foolish one, very absurd ; but the more I 
have thought of the matter the more reasonable it has 
seemed. Why not? In heaven's name, let someone 
answer me that ! Why should not all creatures live 
forever ? I ask myself in vain for a reason of de- 
nial. Surely, if you believe that space as well as 
time is endless, there is room in the innumerable 
worlds of God for the continuation of all life ; and 
who shall say w^hat they may yet be through the 
workings of that law which perfecteth all things and 
bringeth light out of darkness ? I am done with 
the assumption of immortality for man alone, as it 
seems to be founded in a conceit of man rather than 
in reason, or knowledge yet attained. If this does 
not seem to be in perfect accord with some things 



298 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

already written, the reader must bear in mind that 
my object in writing is not so much to prop up 
some pet theory as to find the truth, and that if I 
present different reasonings you have only to con- 
sider them and accept what seems best. This is 
surely not dogmatic, but the world is in need of rea- 
son, and not of dogmatism. Immortality, then, I 
think, is not only of faith, but of reason, and that^ 
like all faith in the real^ is not contrary to but con- 
sistent with true reason. And when faith and rea- 
son shall hand in hand go out together in the search 
for truth, having put away from religion the jeal- 
ousies and bickerings and follies of the past, being 
no longer used or misused as defenders of sacred 
fables, but as the lamps of God for the lighting of 
the world, a greater measure and a more perfect 
knowledge of life and immortality will be brought 
to lip;ht. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CONCLUSION. 

In concluding my remarks upon these subjects, 
there is much I would like to say and many mat- 
ters upon which I would like to touch. Without a 
more definite statement than has already been given, 
the reader would be at no loss to see that my idea 
of heaven is that it is a condition and not a location. 
Location, applied to heaven or hell, seems to me 
foolish. When we say heaven above, meaning a 
higher state, it is well ; and when we say hell below, 
and apply it to a condition^ that too is well ; but ap- 
plied to location, it is foolishness. Of location we 
know nothing, there seems nothing from which to 
learn, and it is of no importance. Whatever our 
location may be, the heaven or hell will be within 
us. Of condition there is enough apparent to the 
reason of man to tell him that it is an absolute cer- 
tainty that the conditions will be unlike, and that 
they will be heavenly or the reverse, according as 
they are perfect or imperfect ; that the future life, 
like the present, is progressive, and that we carry 
with us the results of the use we have made of our 
opportunities, and shall be happy or unhappy ac- 
cording as we get into harmony or correspondence 



300 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

with tliat which is true and perfect— the perfect law, 
the God, and become at one with it — at one with 
him. Of the devil, I will say he is a myth — a false 
notion of man. They have mistaken a condition for 
a power, and personified darkness and ignorance 
and called it the devil. The notion came from igno- 
rance and superstition, and as they disappear the 
devil goes with them. M. D. Conway, M.A.,D.D.,in 
the preface to his *' Demonology and Devil Lore " 
(Vol. L), says: ** Three Friars, saj^s a legend, hid 
themselves near the witch Sabbath orgies that they 
might count the devils ; but the chief of these, dis- 
covering the friars, said : * Reverend Brothers, our 
army is such that if all the Alps, their rocks, and 
glaciers, were equally divided among us, none would 
have a pound's weight.' " However well this may 
have represented the^ number of devils thought to 
exist in the day in which the legend originated, their 
number has steadily decreased in the minds of men 
(the only place in which they ever existed), and we 
are now ready to turn upon that '^ old serpent, which 
is the devil and Satan," and bid him, too, as the 
last of a long line who has cursed mankind, good- 
bye forever. Says Conway : *' Man is saved from 
the >§uperstitious evolution of the venomous serpent 
into a dragon by recognizing its real evolution as 
seen by the eye of science. Science alone can tell 
the true story of the serpent, and can justify its 
place in nature. It forbids man his superstitious 
method of making a god in his own image, and his 
egotistic method of judging nature according to his 
private likes and dislikes, his convenience or incon- 



CONCLUSION. SOI 

venience. Taught by science, man may, with a free- 
dom the barbarian cannot feel, exterminate the ser- 
pent ; with a freedom the Christian cannot know, he 
may see in that reptile the perfection of that econ- 
omy in nature which has ever defended the advan- 
cing forms of life. It judges the good and evil of 
every form, with reference to its adaptation to its 
own purposes. Thus science alone wields the spear 
of Ithuriel, and beneath its touch every dragon 
shrinks instantly to its little shape in nature to be 
dealt with according to what it is. A Scotch song 
says, * Xhe devil is dead and buried at Kirkcaldy ;' 
if so, he did not die until he had created a world in 
his image. The natural world is overlaid by an un- 
natural religion, breeding bitterness around simplest 
thoughts, obstructions to science, estrangements not 
more reasonable than if they resulted from varying 
notions of lunar figures — all derived from the devil 
— bequeathed dogma that certain beliefs and disbe- 
liefs are of infernal instigation. Dogmas, moulded 
in a fossil demonology, make the foundations of in- 
stitutions which divert wealth, learning, enterprise, 
to fictitious ends. It has not, therefore, been mere 
intellectual curiosity which has kept me working at 
this subject these many years, but an increasing 
conviction that the. sequelae of such superstitions 
are exercising a still formidable influence. When 
Father Delaporte lately published his book on the 
devil, his bishop wrote : * Reverend Father, if every 
one busied himself with the devil as you do, the 
kingdom of God would gain by it.' '* Sure it is that 
up from the darkness of many myths, of many SU' 



302 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

perstitions and unreasoning beliefs, many of which, 
in diluted strength or changing form, still cling to 
us, like mud to a garment through which it has 
been trailing, but which we, with less reason, cling 
to with a strange mixture of fear and adoration, man 
has come. It is a continual wonder to me to trace 
customs and observances, ideas and beliefs, back 
to the dim past whence they came, to find them 
grounded in some superstition of a savage mind. 
Among many savage and semi-civilized tribes, who, 
the "Christians" tell us, "know not God," and who_ 
certainly could have had but a feeble and distorted 
view of him, there were found to exist customs and 
beliefs similar to those from which came many 
things still clinging to the minds of men and enter- 
ing into' religious observance or worship. Dorman, 
in "The Origin of Primitive Superstitions," speak- 
ing of the Peruvians, says : "Among the religious 
ceremonies which occupied the priestly caste were 
baptism, confirmation, holy orders, extreme unction. 
Penance was practiced before the principal feasts, 
when they confessed their sins to a priest after they 
had previously fasted several days." Again : " Great 
was the surprise of the first Spanish ecclesiastics, 
who found, on reaching Mexico, a priesthood as reg- 
ularly organized as that of the most civilized coun- 
tries of the Old World. The Mayas intrusted the 
more advanced education of youth entirely to the 
priesthood. Girls were placed in convents under 
superintendence of matrons, who were most strict 
in their guardianship. The supposed power of 
priests over spirits has been the source of their in- 



CONCLUSION. 303 

fluence in all religious, savage and civilized. The 
Tahkali priest lays his hand on the head of the 
nearest relative of the deceased and blows into him 
the soul of the departed, which is supposed to come 
to life in his next child. The survival of this super- 
stition is found in the apostolic succession. Says 
the modern priest at baptism : ' Receive the Holy 
Ghost for the office and work of a priest in the 
church of God now committed unto thee by the im- 
position of our hands.' In addition to the power of 
transmission of spiritual essence, primitive exorcism 
also survived to recent times. The power of the 
modern priest as an exorcist has about departed, 
although the Roman Catholic church has always 
had a specially ordained bociy of exorcists, and re- 
tains the belief in the efficacy of exorcism. Even 
the Church of England adopted the superstition, 
exorcising infants before baptism in these words : 
*I command thee, unclean spirit, in the name of the 
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that 
thou come out and depart from these infants.' 
Among the more advanced races of Mexico and 
Peru, an additional method of aiding in the cure of 
disease was found in the confession of sins. The 
employment of the confessional in the cure of dis- 
ease had a practical use. The disease was supposed 
to be produced by some avenging spirit, w^hich 
might be appeased and turned aside from its venge- 
ful purpose by the penitent admission of the wrong. 
Hence it w^as very common among semi-civilized 
peoples to have a confessional, and among the bar- 
barous tribes it existed in a rude form. The Roman 



304 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

Catholics were quite astonished to find the confes- 
sional established before their arrival. The primi- 
tive belief that disease is produced by hostile spirits 
seeking revenge for some wrong, would naturally re- 
sult in confession. • * * The natives of Salvador 
compelled confession of sins in case of sickness. 
The sins confessed were neglect of the worship of 
their gods. * • * The Peruvians had the confes- 
sional, and it was a sin to conceal anything therein. 
• • • The utilitarian view of sacrifice has now al- 
most passed away. The God of the Christian world 
asks nought but the sacrifice of a broken spirit and 
contrite heart. But the method of worshiping him 
in the Roman Catholic church by the sacrifice of the 
mass has its prototype in the funeral rites of the 
savage. The fire on the grave of the savage for the 
spirit to warm itself by and cook its food, survives 
in the light on the graves of Catholic Europe on 
All Souls' day, and in the light on the sacrificial 
altar of the E-oman church." These quotations, 
which I have taken from various parts of Dorman's 
work, serve well to illustrate the origin of many 
things which, like many others of as crude and bar- 
barous a nature, I repudiate, and ask others to do 
likewise. Why it is, when physical slavery has been 
abolished among nearly every people on the earth, 
men are still in mental slavery to ideas as barbarous 
and that were co-existent with physical bondage, 
seems hard for me to understand. Certain it is that 
slowly, through the ages of the past^ there has been 
a lifting of the clouds. The way has been fought 
out, inch by inch, by ''heretics" and ** unbelievers'* 



CONCLUSION. 305 

and ^' Infidels/' who, in after j^ears, have been recog- 
nized as prophets and reformers, and yet the task 
is far from complete. When men will recognize that 
they are facing the wrong waj^ — when they will see 
that in the past is darkness, distress, superstition, 
and littleness, and that in the future there is hope, 
and peace, and trust, and power ; that here is light, 
and life, and greatness ; and putting behind those 
things against which the heart 'and reason of man 
revolt, press on to the things which are before, a 
new era will dawn upon mankind. The next great 
bound of man's earthly progress is not to come 
through patent appliances and tools for working the 
earthly products, but through the recognition of what 
God is, and of what man is, and was, and is to be. 
Taking from duty the sense of duty and giving it 
the sense of privilegey as it becomes more apparent 
that in its performance alone is gain, we create in 
man an attitude of leaning toward, of reaching after, 
the way of life, of truth, of development, instead of 
a facing and leaning toward the dim and darkened 
doors of the temples in which were offered sacri- 
fices to an unknown God, the light from whose 
altars is still worshiped as the light of life. Men 
ask, "Why, if the the Bible is not true, is it that the 
repeated attacks do not destroy it ?" and actually 
produce that as an evidence that it is the " word of 
God." Will they apply the same test elsewhere ? 
Will they apply it outside of Christianity? Why is 
it, with all the army of missionaries and the yearly 
expenditure of millions of dollars, that those of 
other beliefs still cling to their authority? What 



306 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

effect has all the ridicule and ministerial thunder 
had upon the sacred books of the Chinese, or 
Buddhists, or the Mohammedans, or even the Mor- 
mons ? Does the persistence of its devotees make 
it true and errorless ? Does it make the teachings 
of Brigham Young divine ? Says an able and 
worthy preacher, "You upset the Bible as many 
times as you choose and it is still right side up, like 
a cube." And yet the same man tells you that men 
are getting farther and farther away from the Bible ; 
and he verily believes that the time is near when 
men will have become so lost to God that they will 
merit the destruction which he believes is about to 
fall upon mankind. These statements are very in- 
consistent, and the undoubted fact is that when he 
says the Bible " is right side up and unharmed " he 
has in mind that it is so to those who still believe 
it to be unaffected by criticism, and that when 
he is speaking of the majority, who, he seems to 
think, are falling away from the belief in the truth 
of the Bible, he really acknowledges the effect of 
criticism. And to those minds the Bible, while it 
undoubtedly lands ''right side up,*' or much nearer 
it, at least, lands in a very different position from 
that which it formerly occupied in the minds of 
inen. And yet those who still worship at the shrine 
of its perfection gather around it, though oft with 
many strange misgivings in their hearts and new 
interpretations upon their lips which the cause of 
truth has forced them to produce, and declare their 
unwavering belief in its inerrancy and perfection. 
Of such is man to-day — a creature strange indeed. 



CONCLUSION. 307 

The iconoclast has not yet ceased to be of use to 
humanity, for in the place of the idols which he de- 
molishes and the impositions which he exposes are 
raised new idols and new impositions, or new con- 
ceptions which become impositions by assuming 
the same relative position as the old — namely, of 
perfection and inerrancy. And so the same scenes 
are re-enacted again and again and the struggle 
goes on. There was once a vineyard that was like 
unto a plat of wild land, where .weeds and fruit pro- 
miscuous grew ; and the owner was proud of that 
vineyard and gathered the fruit thereof and was 
content; saying, *'What a glorious thing to have a 
vineyard !" Now, this vineyard was full of weeds, of 
grass of the field,' and stones, and the earth thereof 
was hard and stubborn ; but the vine grew and bare 
fruit, and the owner of the vineyard was content. 
By and by there came a husbandman from a far 
country and looked upon the vineyard, and behold, 
wheurhe looked upon it he said unto the owner of 
the vineyard, " Come, now, I pray thee, and I will 
make thy vineyard blossom as the rose." "Thou 
I boaster," said the owner of the vineyard, " is not 
this the vineyard of our fathers, and did not they 
gather its fruit in its season ? Is there then a better 
vineyard ? if so, show it me. Be gone, thou irrever- 
ent braggart ! Did not God give this vineyard to my 
fathers, and was it not good in his sight ? Tou 
who would tear up my vineyard and destroy it, get 
thee to the desert and hide thyself lest, perchance, 
I fall upon thee and drive thee forth !" But at last 
the husbandman prevailed by reason of great im- 



308 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

portunity ; and he digged up the vineyard and 
dressed it and pulled great weeds thereout and 
burned them in the fire. And he watered that vine- 
yard, and lo ! when the harvest came it bore much 
fruit, and the owner thereof rejoiced greatly and 
sang the praises of his vineyard and glorified the 
true husbandman ; saying, *' Now have I a perfect 
vineyard forever, both I and my children and my 
children's children." And it came to pass that 
there were many seeds in that earth and tares sprang 
up and multiplied. And the owner of the vineyard 
died and left it to his sons, who sang its glories and 
gathered its fruit from year to year, glorifying the 
true husbandman and saying, " Behold the beauti- 
ful vineyard which was given unto our fathers." And 
it came to pass as they sang thus from year to year 
that many weeds were there, tall and strong, and 
choking the vine, and the ground was getting hard 
and sterile because of much glorifying and no im- 
provement ; for they still sang "Behold my vine- 
yard, that it is fair as a lily, that it is beautiful 
as an Eden, that is purer than many waters, that it 
is grander than many hills. Blessed be the God 
who sent the true husbandman ; behold a perfect 
work." And a friend came and said, *' Behold, thy 
vineyard is choked with weeds ;" and the owner of 
the vineyard said to the friend, " Be gone, thou 
enemy of perfection ; trouble not my vineyard with 
thy croaking !" and the friend went sadly away. 
And another came to him and said : " Behold, thy 
vineyard is full of weeds, and tares are higher than 
the vine and choke it, and their roots crowd out 



CONCLUSION. 309 

the roots of the vine and stop its growth, and the 
earth has become hard and dry, and the vine send- 
eth forth few new shoots which bear the blossoms 
but produces only an abundance of leaves. Thy 
seed increases from year to year and has need of 
much and better fruit, and some of them have wan- 
dered away and sought food in the wilderness be- 
cause the grapes of the vine have waxed sour to 
their taste and insufficient for their cravings. Re- 
form, then, thy vineyard, that it may be pleasant to 
look upon and productive of good fruit, even that 
which is sufficient for thy children and which will 
satisfy the desire of their hearts ; and no longer tell 
them this fruit is sweet and good and pure, and you 
must eat thereof or perish ; but make it so you can 
say unto them, * Come, and behold that which hath 
been given ; taste and see, for it is good and profitable 
unto men.' And the owner of the vineyard waxed 
exceeding angry and uttered great swelling words : 
'' Ob, thou scoffer ! oh, thou scum of the world ! oh, 
thou child of the devil ! oh, thou serpent in the gar- 
den ! oh, thou unbeliever ! Knowest thou not that 
this vineyard is a perfect vineyard? Did not our 
fathers so say, and is not their testimony true? 
Thou setter-forth of new things that walkest not after 
the old way and acceptest not the old teachings. 
Tremblest thou not with fear at thy presumption ? 
Out upon thee, thou adversary of the righteous." 
But the friend would not be silenced, but besought 
him the more earnestly, telling him that before that 
vineyard was, there was another vineyard, and they 
of old time said that it was good, even perfect, but 



310 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

there came a true husbandman that saw the imper- 
fections of that vineyard, and he prevailed upon the 
owner, and he reformed his vinej^ard, and made it 
the best that had ever been upon the earth. But 
many weeds are now seen in that vineyard, and men 
wax more wise and need a more perfect vineyard ; 
reform, therefore, thy vineyard and make it right. 
" Be no longer blind and stubborn, but accept the 
new truth of the new day that it may be well with thee 
and with thy posterity forever." And the owner of 
the field made answer unto to him saying : '* Why 
temptest thou me further? See you not that, even 
were I to yield unto thee to do as thou desirest, 
the things that you call tares are become woven in 
with the vine and support it, and if I take them 
away the vine will also fall because its support is 
no more ?" And again, " See you not that the roots 
of the tares are woven in with the roots of the vine, 
and if I pull up the weeds I destroy the vine also ? 
See what you ask that I shall do ! My children 
have little now to eat, and, as thou sayest, are going 
away to obtain it. Would you have me destroy this 
vine altogether, and let my children die or feed upon 
husks like oxen ? Those things which you call evil 
have become a support and a stay by the mysterious 
providence of God, therefore are they as essential 
as life itself, for, without them, the vine would 
wither and die." And the friend answered him 
again : " Has it indeed come to this ? Is evil so in- 
terwoven with good ; are truth and error so mingled ; 
is the true vine trussed up by tares so that all must 
stand or fall together? God forbid! But if ye 



CONCLUSION. 311 

hearken not unto my voice, then shall your vineyard 
go down in corruption, for it is like unto a house 
builded part of wood and part of stone. The wood 
endureth for a season, but time bringeth proof of 
its substance, and at last, despite the patching of 
cornice, the shifting of bearings, and the propping 
of beam and girder, it must be rebuilded, or it fall- 
eth upon itself — a heap of mingled strength and 
weakness. But even though it be as thou sayest, 
let us not delay, but let us rather tear out the whole 
field, both root and branch, and plow the ground 
anew, commencing again to build at the foundation. 
And after we have renewed it, let us not say it is a 
perfect vineyard, but let us say, rather, that it is a 
better vineyard, and let us watch it and tend it lest, 
in time, it also become choked ; and let us take 
counsel of the truth, and when any man says he hath 
new light in tending a vineyard, let us hear him, and 
if, perchance, it be found better than the old way, 
let us accept it with joy as, in days past, you did 
accept the vineyard, and it* shall be well with the 
sons of men forever. Now hearken to the words that 
I shall speak, and heed them welL Take thou the 
seed by making cuttings from every true vine and 
preserve them. Then straightway pull up every 
tare and burn it, and if any vine cannot stand unless 
it have the tares for support, then let it fall. Set 
thou the cuttings of the true vine in the earth, and 
it shall come to pass that not only shall they live 
and grow with exceeding growth and power, but the 
true vine that fell down shall be watered b}^ the 
d^TVS of heaven and fed by the rigbness now at the 



312 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

roots, and warmed by the sun, and it shall grow 
and flourish, and your vineyard shall become a 
thing of wonder and of joy, even to the uttermost 
parts of the earth." Many a mind to-day sees the 
errors of principle and of fact contained in the 
Bible whose lips will not admit it. Many a mind 
sees the house crumbling upon its foundation, be- 
cause of the wood which was mixed with the stone 
in its construction, but they will not admit it. They 
fear that if the errancy of the Bible were admitted 
it would result in harm. They forget that they 
came to the place they now occupy by admitting 
new light, by admitting new teaching, to the denial 
of the old, and strive to make it appear that it was 
not a denial. They worship the past, to which they 
cling, fearing even to admit that there are tares in 
their vineyard lest it be discredited, and to pull 
them out lest it destroy the fruit ; failing to realize 
that man has grown, and that the things that would 
once have served as a garment he can no longer 
wear, and that if they do not cease from trying to 
force upon him that for which he has no use, he will 
abandon them all together. You present him with 
a cake mixed with pebbles, and when he tells you 
the pebbles are not fit for food you call him a here- 
tic and an Infidel, and tell him to eat it all — that 
his forefathers ate it, and so it is good for him. I 
fully accord to all the privilege which I claim for 
myself— the right to my opinion. I am ready to 
listen to all, and judge without fear or favor as far 
forth as I am able. Sometimes we can learn more 
from our opponents than from our friends. It is 



CONCLUSION. 313 

well, therefore, to examine all things with fairness, 
but while I am ready to listen to all, no man upon 
the earth, or that ever was upon the earth, holds a 
commission to judge for me in matters of faith and 
reason. Evidence may be submitted, reason may be 
presented by all, but the individual who does not 
decide for himself is not a man — only a dummy. 
Priestcraft, which, in this particular, is in the Prot- 
estant as well as in the Catholic church, says to the 
individual, with an assumption of knowledge which 
is but conceit, ** I will judge for you. I am learned 
and know of these things [forgetting that the 
learned disagree upon these matters as much as the 
unlearned], and am therefore better able to decide." 
Take care, take care, Protestant, as well as Catholic, 
for much that j^ou have learned you ought to un- 
learn. Remember there may be a vast difference 
between learning and wisdom. In matters of im- 
portance, whether of religious or secular matters, I 
believe the individual should examine both sides 
and then decide for himself. Truth has nothing to 
fear from investigation. Error may well tremble in 
its shoes.' Fear to examine is evidence of conscious 
weakness. Welcome, then, all investigation, know- 
ing that only error can be destroyed and that truth 
will but shine the brighter. 

In closing I will say that, while I do not expect 
the reader will agree with me in all things, I 
trust he may be able to be so minded as to take 
what he can accept as truth, as that which it seems 
to him to be, and not to throw away the whole be- 
cause he cannot accept a part. Making no claim to 



314 RELIGION AND THE BIBLE. 

perfection, I trust that these pages may contain that 
which will make them profitable unto men. There 
is in the view given of man's journey of life, in chap- 
ter tenth, a certain poetic form of expression, but 
I beg of you not to think I was trying to " make 
poetry," as I had no such object, and simply wrote 
my thoughts as they came ; therefore, using the 
easiest and most convenient form of expression at 
hand. 

To those who fear to follow where their hearts 
and reason lead them, let me say : Remember that 
the parts of the body all have their uses, and that 
much more have these mental and spiritual facul- 
ties which are God's best gifts to man. When you 
see a man trying to grasp the knowledge that seems 
ever to elude him, when, as we say that he, the 
finite, is trying to comprehend the infinite, don't 
sneer at him in the assumption of your own wisdom, 
but tell him to press on. Tell him to never turn 
back, but to climb higher and still higher, remem- 
bering that he himself hath within him a spark of 
-the infinite, and that the talent that is used is 
1 strengthened and increased, while shrunken, shriv- 
eled and lost to sight and growth is the talent that 
is hidden in the ground. 



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